Wayne State introduces Tyrone Wheatley as new football coach
(CBS DETROIT) - Inkster native and former University of Michigan star running back Tyrone Wheatley was introduced as Wayne State University's new football coach Thursday.
Wheatley served as the running backs coach with the Denver Broncos this season.
"This is special for me. This is special for me. I know this might sound a little corny, a little cliché, but there's no place like home," Wheatley said.
A Dearborn Heights Robichaud graduate, Wheatley, 51, began his collegiate coaching career at Ohio Northern University. Other coaching stints included stops at Eastern Michigan, Syracuse, the Buffalo Bills, Michigan and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Wheatley also was the head coach at Morgan State from 2019-21.
"A lot of times you get caught up in this culture world with wins and losses. And I always tell the coaches that I recruit that you really won't see my wins and losses until five years after these young men graduate," Wheatley said. "That's when the wins and losses really come into play, when they're winning in life, when they go through struggles and they can go back and take a piece of the process they went through just to get through practice and now say I can apply this to life."
The 1992 Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, Wheatley rushed for 4,187 yards and amassed 53 total touchdowns as a Wolverine.
A 2013 Michigan Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Wheatley was selected by the New York Giants in the first round of the 1995 NFL Draft. Wheatley spent time with the Giants, Miami Dolphins and Oakland Raiders, ending his NFL career in 2004 with nearly 5,000 rushing yards and 47 total touchdowns.
Wheatley takes over a Wayne State program that went 1-9 in 2022.