Baltimore, Maryland · Founded 1900 · Eagles
“A tiny West Baltimore HBCU with one of the greatest upsets in March Madness history — a basketball program that built the school's name one road trip at a time.”
A narrated walkthrough of the school's full arc — from the 1900 teacher-training course to Fanny Jackson Coppin to the modern university.
Full-game review of the 78-65 upset — the third 15-over-2 stunner ever and the first NCAA tournament win by a MEAC program.
The Eagles' 2013 arena intro video, complete with a windmill dunk — a time capsule of the PEC's game-day energy.
MPT's one-hour special hosted on campus — student conversations and program spotlights, later nominated for a 2026 Capital Emmy.
A full campus tour of the 38-acre West North Avenue campus for prospective students.
Biography of the school's namesake: born enslaved, Oberlin graduate, pioneer of Black teacher education.
Student-shot weekend vlog showing what the yard actually feels like on a Coppin weekend.
September 2026 — the youngest student in Coppin State history enrolls, a local story about the school's open-door mission.
September 2026 — the Eagles beat UConn 3-1 to open the For The White and Blue Tournament, covered by UConn student television.
President Anthony Jenkins' 2026 address on the school's accomplishments and trajectory into its 125th year and beyond.
Class of 1991 — two-time MEAC Player of the Year; five NBA seasons (Bullets, Grizzlies, Sonics); first undrafted player ever named to the NBA All-Rookie Team; school's all-time rebounding leader; Coppin head coach since 2023.
One of two Coppin players to reach the NBA, suiting up for the Washington Bullets.
Class of 1998 — first woman to coach a men's professional basketball team; NBA on TNT and NBA TV broadcaster; former Coppin volleyball player and assistant men's basketball coach; emceed Fang Day.
Class of 2009 — hit the game-winning floater with three seconds left to beat Morgan State 62-60 in the 2008 MEAC title game; went on to a long professional career, including Australia's Wollongong Hawks.
Class of 1999 — long-running Philippine Basketball Association player.
Class of 1999 — Philippine Basketball Association player with the San Miguel Beermen.
Class of 2007 — professional player in the Premier Basketball League for the Buffalo Stampede.
Grammy-nominated R&B and neo-soul artist.
Music and film producer and independent record label CEO.
Actress known for 'Polyester,' 'Desperate Living,' and 'A Dirty Shame.'
First African American police commissioner of Baltimore City (1984–1987); earned his master's in education at Coppin before entering law enforcement.
Class of 1932 — the first Black woman to serve in the Maryland Senate; a Maryland political pioneer and educator.
Class of 1952 — first Black woman to chair the Baltimore City Delegation.
Women's rights activist.
The Baltimore City School Board opens a one-year training course for the preparation of African-American elementary school teachers at what was then called Colored High School (later Frederick Douglass High School) on Pennsylvania Avenue. Classes begin in January 1901 at Dolphin Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Under segregation, Black children could only be taught by Black teachers, so the course exists to fill a direct need in Baltimore's Black public schools.
The training program expands to a two-year Normal Department inside the high school. 'Normal' comes from the French ecole normale — the idea that teaching itself needed standardized professional training. For seven years the department grows inside the high school's walls, outgrowing them. The need for a dedicated teacher-training school for Black educators is already obvious.
The Normal Department separates from the high school entirely and gets its own principal, becoming a standalone institution. It moves into the elementary school building at Saratoga and Mount Streets. The school is still small and borrowed-space, but it is now unmistakably its own thing. This is the moment Coppin stops being a program inside a high school and becomes a college in waiting.
The teacher-training school is renamed the Fanny Jackson Coppin Normal School, honoring a woman born enslaved in Washington, D.C. in 1837 who bought her freedom, graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio, and became a pioneer of Black teacher education as head principal of Philadelphia's Institute for Colored Youth — the forerunner of Cheyney State University. The school would move twice more in the coming decade: to the Booker T. Washington High School building at Lafayette Avenue and McCullough Street in 1928, and to Elementary School No. 132 at Mount Street near Riggs Avenue in 1932. Still, the name it took in 1926 never left.
The curriculum lengthens to four years, the state grants authority to award the Bachelor of Science degree, and the Normal School becomes Coppin Teachers College. This is the school's first real graduation into higher education — a degree-granting college with a four-year program. Verda Welcome, who would later become the first Black woman in the Maryland Senate, graduates in 1932 and belongs to this era of the school's rise.
Coppin becomes part of Maryland's higher education system under the State Department of Education and is renamed Coppin State Teachers College. Dr. Miles Connor is appointed as the institution's first president (1950–1956). The school is now a state college with state funding obligations — a relationship that would be fruitful, and sometimes fiercely contested, for decades to come.
Coppin moves to its present 38-acre site on West North Avenue in northwest Baltimore, the neighborhood it still anchors today. After half a century of borrowed rooms and relocations across West Baltimore, the school finally has a permanent campus to call its own. The move plants Coppin in the middle of the community it was founded to serve.
The Board of Trustees rules that Coppin's degree-granting authority will no longer be restricted to teacher education, and the school is renamed Coppin State College. The first Bachelor of Arts degree is conferred in 1967. What began as a one-room teacher-training course is now a full liberal arts college with a broader academic mission — a shift that would eventually make 'State University' the only fitting name.
Dr. Calvin W. Burnett becomes Coppin's third president, and he would hold the office for 32 years — the defining leadership run in school history. Enrollment grows from roughly 1,100 to 4,000 during his tenure, and he launches programs far beyond teaching: nursing, criminal justice, and rehabilitation counseling among them. He fights running battles with the Maryland legislature over funding; a state-appointed task force ultimately finds Coppin underfunded, and Burnett works with Lt. Gov. Michael Steele to acquire vacant property for campus expansion.
Coppin State moves up to NCAA Division I and joins the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference as a non-football member, betting that basketball can carry a small school's national name. The bet pays off almost immediately: Ron 'Fang' Mitchell's teams begin a run that would make Coppin the most feared small program in the MEAC. Philly guard Larry Stewart arrives in 1988 and becomes the school's first true star — a two-time MEAC Player of the Year who would play in the NBA and become the first undrafted player ever named to the NBA All-Rookie Team.
On December 12, 1989, Coppin State's men's basketball team walks into College Park and beats Maryland 70-63 — the Eagles' first-ever win over an ACC opponent. The game earns a permanent place among the MEAC's 50 greatest moments. Maryland responds by going on an 87-game nonconference home winning streak that lasts 13 years, which tells you how badly nobody expected Coppin to win that night.
Behind Larry Stewart, Coppin State earns its first-ever NCAA Tournament berth, winning the MEAC tournament and taking the small school to the Big Dance for the first time. Stewart finishes as the school's all-time rebounding leader (1,052) and third-leading scorer (1,824 points) — the only player in school history with 1,000 career points and 1,000 career rebounds. The Eagles are officially on the national map.
On March 14, 1997, in Pittsburgh, 15th-seeded Coppin State — a 30-point underdog — dismantles second-seeded South Carolina 78-65 in the NCAA tournament's first round. It is just the third time a 15 seed has ever beaten a 2 seed, and the first NCAA tournament win ever by a MEAC program. Guards Danny Singletary (22 points off the bench, 18 in the second half) and Antoine Brockington (20 points) combine for 42, and the Eagles nearly do it twice: they lose to Texas 82-81 in the next round. The win still stands among the most famous upsets in tournament history.
Dr. Stanley F. Battle is named Coppin's fourth president, starting March 3, 2003, arriving from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee with a mandate to make Coppin a leader among the nation's urban HBCUs. He succeeds Calvin Burnett after 32 years, one of the longest presidential runs in HBCU history. Battle's stay is short — he leaves in June 2007 to become president of North Carolina A&T, and Provost Sadie Gregory serves as interim president.
Coppin State College becomes Coppin State University, the name finally matching what the school had become: a multi-college urban university offering bachelor's, master's, and eventually a doctoral program in nursing practice. The school keeps its teachers-college soul — education remains central — but the name change closes the book on the 'college' era for good.
Coppin State becomes the first 20-loss team in history to reach the NCAA tournament, winning three straight in the MEAC tournament as the seventh seed. The title game is an instant classic: senior guard Tywain McKee hits a five-foot floater with three seconds left to beat crosstown rival Morgan State 62-60 and steal the MEAC's automatic bid. In the NCAA opening-round game the Eagles beat Mount St. Mary's 60-44 before falling to top-seeded North Carolina. McKee's floater remains the most replayed shot in school history.
On December 5, 2009 — unveiled in February 2010 — Coppin opens its $111.7 million, 246,000-square-foot Physical Education Complex: a 4,100-seat arena, an NCAA-regulation pool, a fitness center, auxiliary gyms, a dance studio, racquetball courts, classrooms, and outdoor fields. It replaces the old Coppin Center (demolished in 2012) as the home of men's and women's basketball and volleyball. For a school that Fang Mitchell once coached with 'no facilities,' as ESPN would later put it, the PEC is a statement.
Dr. Reginald S. Avery — president since January 2008 and the man who oversaw the Health and Human Services Building, the PEC's construction, and the Science and Technology Center's design — resigns after a February 2012 faculty no-confidence vote, stepping down in January 2013. Dr. Mortimer H. Neufville, former VP for academic affairs and interim president at UMES, serves first as interim (January 2013) and then as president (July 2013). It is a bruising leadership transition, and the school spends two years steadying itself.
Dr. Maria Thompson becomes Coppin's seventh president on July 1, 2015 — the first woman to hold the office. The same year the $100M-plus Science and Technology Center finishes construction on the south side of West North Avenue, the school's signature academic building. And Coppin finds itself at the center of the national conversation: days after Freddie Gray's death, the athletics department publicly assures student-athletes' safety as unrest spreads through the surrounding West Baltimore neighborhood — the same streets made famous by 'The Wire.'
Dr. Anthony L. Jenkins is appointed Coppin's eighth president, effective May 26, 2020, arriving from West Virginia State where he built global university partnerships across Africa, Mexico, and China. He succeeds interim president Mickey Burnim, who led the school after Maria Thompson's retirement in June 2019. Jenkins takes over a small urban HBCU at the start of the pandemic era — and immediately starts talking about Coppin as a national model for urban higher education.
On October 16, 2021, Coppin holds 'Fang Day' and names the PEC Arena floor 'Ron Fang Mitchell Court,' honoring 28 seasons (1986–2014), 429 victories — the most in MEAC history — ten regular-season titles, and four NCAA tournament trips. Alumna Stephanie Ready, the first woman to coach a men's professional basketball team and an NBA broadcaster, emcees; Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott presents a proclamation; a seven-minute tribute video plays before the unveiling. Mitchell, a no-nonsense disciplinarian from Philadelphia who built winners out of Baltimore's overlooked kids, gets the honor Hall of Famers get: his name on the floor.
On March 14, 2022 — 25 years to the day after the South Carolina upset — Andscape's one-hour documentary 'On & Coppin' premieres on ESPN+. Narrated by Baltimore native Felicia 'Snoop' Pearson of 'The Wire' and directed by the father-daughter team of Jerry Bembry and Ashley Bembry-Kaintuck, the film tells how Fang Mitchell turned funding disparity into fuel, scheduling pay-to-play road games at big programs to keep Coppin's athletic department alive. It is the most high-profile telling of Coppin's story ever made.
In May 2023, Coppin State names alumnus Larry Stewart ('06) its new head men's basketball coach, replacing Juan Dixon (fired in March). Stewart — the two-time MEAC Player of the Year, NBA veteran, and the man who led Coppin to its first NCAA tournament — returns after 14 years as an assistant at Bowie State, Morgan State, and Maryland Eastern Shore. 'I bleed blue and gold,' he says. In the fall, the Coppin Pep Band returns to the sidelines for volleyball, women's basketball, and men's basketball under coordinator Hugh Barnes, restoring a game-day atmosphere the school had been missing.
Maryland Public Television's one-hour special 'Welcome to HBCU Week' is hosted on Coppin's campus, with conversations featuring Coppin students and leaders and a look inside the school's academic programs — and a screening event in the James Weldon Auditorium. The special is nominated for a 2026 Capital Emmy. For a school that has spent a century punching above its weight, it's a fitting spotlight: the cameras finally come to West North Avenue.
In September 2026, a 14-year-old enrolls at Coppin State, becoming the youngest student in school history — a local story that captures the school's open-door mission for Baltimore's brightest kids. President Jenkins delivers the 2026 State of the University address laying out recent accomplishments and the school's trajectory. And the 2022 Facilities Master Plan shows visible results: four campus buildings — the Miles W. Connor Administration Building, the J. Millard Tawes Center, Grace Hill Jacobs Building, and the Physical Education Complex — get a full signage and graphics redesign by Ayers Saint Gross (designed 2023, built March 2024–March 2025).
The two Baltimore HBCUs — Coppin in the west, Morgan in the east — have played the annual 'East vs. West' season series for generations, often closing the MEAC regular season against each other during rivalry week; the women's series hit its 94th meeting in March 2025. In men's basketball Coppin led the all-time series 49-15 as of 2008, but Morgan has owned the women's series lately, winning 13 of the last 17 meetings. The signature game: the 2008 MEAC championship, when seventh-seeded Coppin's Tywain McKee hit a five-foot floater with three seconds left to stun Morgan 62-60 and steal the NCAA bid. The name also lives on from a defunct multi-school 'Battle of Baltimore' tournament (1998–2004) featuring Towson, Loyola, and UMBC, with Coppin and Morgan alternating as the fourth team.
Coppin's basketball homecoming game at the PEC is traditionally played against Howard, and the series has been lopsided in the Eagles' favor — Coppin led 41-21 as of February 2019. It's less a hatred rivalry than a measuring-stick one: the biggest-name HBCU in the conference coming to West Baltimore for Coppin's biggest home date of the year. The 2019 homecoming game against Howard drew one of the PEC's best atmospheres of the season.
🥁 Coppin State Pep Band · since 2023
Coppin has no marching band — and no NCAA football team — so the Pep Band is the school's game-day sound, built for the indoor arena. An earlier pep band played home basketball games in the mid-2010s under head coach Michael Grant, but the current band was formally relaunched in fall 2023 as the centerpiece of the MEAC game-day atmosphere at the Physical Education Complex. It is open to all students, with or without experience. (Earlier directors unverified — no complete historical roster is publicly documented.)
Pep band coordinator who led the band's return to the sidelines in fall 2023 for volleyball, women's basketball, and men's basketball.
All nine National Pan-Hellenic Council organizations are present on campus — the full Divine Nine, which is not a given at a school this small. Chapters lean heavily into community service, tutoring, health fairs, and voter registration alongside step shows and yard life.
Still digging this up — check back soon.
A three-phase utility infrastructure, fire, and security project wraps up across campus — unglamorous but foundational work that modernized the backbone of a campus that had grown piecemeal for decades.
The $111.7 million, 246,000-square-foot Physical Education Complex opens (December 5, 2009; publicly unveiled February 2010): a 4,100-seat arena, NCAA-regulation pool, fitness center, auxiliary gymnasium, dance studio, racquetball courts, classrooms, and outdoor fields. It replaces the aging Coppin Center as the home of basketball and volleyball and gives a Division I program facilities to match its ambitions.
The France Murphy Research building gets a full renovation, the campus quad is rebuilt, and campus data centers are upgraded. Three projects in one year — research space, the campus's central green, and the IT backbone — signal a school rebuilding itself from the inside out.
The old Coppin Center — the school's former gym and the home of so much of the Fang Mitchell-era magic — is demolished, clearing the way for the PEC era. The arena floor naming for Mitchell in 2021 would, in a sense, bring the old building's spirit into the new one.
Coppin completes land acquisition on the south side of West North Avenue for its future Science and Technology Center — the largest academic building project in school history. The expansion pushes the campus footprint across North Avenue itself.
The Health and Human Services Building — completed under President Avery's building boom — gives nursing, one of Coppin's flagship programs, a modern home. Nursing remains one of the top degree producers at the school, feeding Baltimore's hospitals from the campus on West North Avenue.
Construction finishes on the Science and Technology Center, the school's signature STEM facility with modern laboratories and collaborative spaces. Completed under President Maria Thompson, it anchors Coppin's bid to be taken seriously as a science school, not just a teachers' college.
Structural corrections are completed at Daly Hall and the Elevator Tower/ADA Bridge project finishes — accessibility and building-integrity work that matters enormously at an urban commuter-heavy campus. Grace Hill Jacobs also gets bathroom and ADA upgrades around the same period.
The PEC Arena floor is named for legendary coach Ron 'Fang' Mitchell — 'Ron Fang Mitchell Court' in black lettering near the sideline — unveiled during Fang Day on October 16, 2021, with a seven-minute tribute video, a mayoral proclamation, and a 25-minute speech from Mitchell himself.
Per the 2022 Facilities Master Plan, four buildings — the Miles W. Connor Administration Building, the J. Millard Tawes Center, Grace Hill Jacobs Building, and the Physical Education Complex — get a full signage and graphics redesign by the firm Ayers Saint Gross: 55 spaces across entrances, circulation routes, and communal areas. Designed in 2023 and built March 2024–March 2025, it's the most visible cosmetic upgrade to the campus in a decade.
Coppin's coaching history is its institutional memory: Fang Mitchell's 28-year run defined the school nationally, and the 2023 hire of Larry Stewart was an explicit attempt to reconnect the program to that era. Stephanie Ready — Coppin alumna, former volleyball player and assistant men's basketball coach, first woman to coach a men's pro team, NBA broadcaster — remains the school's most visible ambassador in national sports media. (Women's basketball coach as of 2021 was Laura Harper; current holder unverified.)
429 wins — the most in MEAC history — with ten regular-season titles, four NCAA tournament trips (1990, 1993, 1997, 2008), and the 1997 upset of South Carolina. The arena floor at the PEC is named for him. A six-time MEAC Coach of the Year, he built the program by recruiting Baltimore's overlooked kids.
Coppin legend returned home: two-time MEAC Player of the Year, the school's first NCAA tournament team (1990), five NBA seasons, and the first undrafted player ever named to the NBA All-Rookie Team. Hired in May 2023 after 14 years as an assistant at Bowie State, Morgan State, and UMES.
Leads Coppin's 14-sport NCAA Division I athletic department, the smallest-budget program in the MEAC's Division I ranks.
Runs the relaunched Coppin Pep Band (fall 2023), the school's game-day sound for volleyball and basketball.
Coppin is a small, urban, residential liberal arts campus of about 2,000 students in northwest Baltimore, and it feels like it: intimate, service-oriented, deeply tied to the surrounding neighborhood. Students tutor in local schools, intern at neighborhood nonprofits, and treat West Baltimore as part of the campus, not a backdrop. Game nights at the 4,100-seat PEC are the social center of gravity — basketball is the school's shared language. A bronze bust of Barack Obama sits in the campus library a few feet from one of Fanny Jackson Coppin, unveiled on Presidents' Day under President Thompson with 125 people braving the rain: a former slave and a former president, side by side, at a school in the neighborhood 'The Wire' made famous.