Pete Shinnick, who was named the head football coach at Towson University on Dec. 11, saw a familiar name pop on his phone not long after the news was announced by the school, but he wasn’t completely sure it was really him.
“I’m sitting there returning phone calls, getting emails and trying to make plans to get here and I see this name pop up on my cell phone and it says, ‘Mike Locksley,'” Shinnick said on Glenn Clark Radio Dec. 16. “And I’m like, ‘OK, is that the Mike Locksley?’ You get a lot of people calling you over the course of time and I’m like, ‘OK.’ So I answer it and Coach was fantastic.”
Locksley was a safety at what was then known as Towson State from 1988-1991 and began his coaching career there after graduating. He has since had three coaching stints at Maryland, his most recent one as the head coach since 2019. Locksley led the Terps to a 7-5 season in 2022, which will be capped off by an appearance in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl against NC State on Dec. 30.
Maryland and Towson will kick off their 2023 seasons in College Park on Sept. 2, and the two programs will play each other in 2025 as well. No matter, it was apparent to Shinnick that Locksley still cares deeply about his alma mater.
“He was so gracious. He was so kind. He talked about his experience at Towson. He talked about what an amazing time he had there. He talked about how he wants to see this program get back to where he thinks it should be,” Shinnick said. “And in the back of my mind I’m sitting there going, ‘I think we open up with them.’ And then he goes, ‘Coach, if you want to come to bowl practice, you come down. Whatever we have, we’ll share with you. Whatever we have, we’ll give you. I want you to know that I’m here for you.'”
Towson University moved on from Rob Ambrose as head coach following the 2022 season. The Tigers closed the season on four-game winning streak to finish at 6-5, but Towson had only been to the FCS playoffs one time since going to the national championship game in 2013. Ambrose finished his tenure as head coach of his alma mater at 76-76.
Towson landed on Shinnick, who was born in Baltimore. He the son of former Colts linebacker Don Shinnick, who played in Baltimore from 1957-1969. Pete Shinnick is 159-67 as a college head coach at West Florida, UNC Pembroke and Azusa Pacific. The 57-year-old was most recently at West Florida, leading the Argonauts to the Division II national championship in 2019.
Shinnick signed a five-year deal to coach at Towson.
“The feelings and the emotions have just been really flowing — obviously knew that the stadium was Johnny Unitas Stadium and knew that I lived in a house 2 miles from campus up to age 4 before they moved outside a little bit,” Shinnick said. “… You grow up having listened to my dad and all the great memories, having met a lot of the former players at some different functions to now be back in Baltimore, to be back in this area, I don’t know that I could be more thrilled at this opportunity because it really has come full circle. It’s exciting for me.”
Don Shinnick, whose 37 interceptions is a modern NFL record among linebackers, turned to coaching after retiring as a player. He coached linebackers in the NFL from 1970-1989, and his son eventually followed in his footsteps as a coach.
Now, it all circles back to Baltimore.
“When I first got into coaching and started getting around other coaches and people who had been in the business a long time, one of the things that they said about my dad was, ‘Your dad was probably one of the nicer, friendlier people that I had ever been around,” Shinnick said. “… My dad early on said, ‘You’ve got an opportunity to impact and influence people in a positive way, Pete, every day of your life through this profession.’ That has really been at the forefront of what I’m trying to do.”
For more from Shinnick, listen to the full interview here:
Photo credit: Alex Wright/Towson University