Douglas "Doug" Porter (born August 15, 1929) is a former
American football coach. He served as the head coach at
Mississippi Valley State University (1961–1965),
Howard University (1974–1978), and
Fort Valley State University (1979–1996), compiling a career
college football record of 166-107-5. He was also an assistant coach at
Grambling State University under
Eddie Robinson. Porter was inducted into the
College Football Hall of Fame in 2008.
A fixture in historically black college athletics, Doug Porter forged an indelible coaching and administrative career for more than fifty years.
In 1961, Porter accepted his first head coaching job at Mississippi Valley State University, where he turned around a program that had not had a winning season in five years before his third season in 1963. He then served as Eddie Robinson’s assistant at Grambling State for nine seasons and later took the helm at Howard from 1974-78. After Fort Valley State University hired him in 1979, it took Porter only one season to lead the Wildcats to a conference title. He led his teams to six Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles and two NCAA playoff appearances. He boasts only five losing seasons in 26 years as a head coach.
The Memphis, Tenn., native and seven-time SIAC Coach of the Year served as Fort Valley’s athletics director for 16 years. He also acted as chairman of the Division II Football Committee and as president of the National Athletic Steering Committee.
Porter returned to Grambling in 1997, becoming an advisor to former GSU coaches Doug Williams (a 2001 player inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame) and Melvin Spears and current coach Rod Broadway. Porter currently assists in the efforts to establish a museum in Hall of Fame Coach Eddie Robinson’s honor.
