Norfolk State alum, Rayquan Smith joined HBCU Sports Talk with Mani to discuss his new football journey at Virginia State and his NIL deals.
Smith is coming off an impressive career at Norfolk State in football and track. He chose to take his talents to Virginia State for a graduate year to get back onto the football field.
“ I was under coach Latrell Scott and then once Covid hit in 2020, he went to another school and a new coach came in. Smith said. Bringing a new coach in changes the program and I didn’t feel it fit me the right way.”
In Smith’s fourth game of his junior season, Smith suffered a season ending lisfranc joint injury that required surgery. Going into the 2022 season, Smith put his football career on hold and had his sights set on focusing on track and field under coaches Jerry Price and Kenneth Giles participating in the decathlon.
“It helped me become a better person. I went through a little adversity, but I am happy that they gave me the chance to come back to complete my degree there too.” Smith said.
Smith was a 2023 Decathlon 3rd place Outdoor winner and a 2x MEAC champ in track and field.
Smith also earned his bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications at Norfolk State before joining Virginia State.
Virginia State is coming off a dominant win over Shaw on Saturday 38-19. Smith had nothing but great things to say about his new team.
“We keep stacking everyday doing what we have to do in order to keep winning.” Smith said.
Virginia State is currently 5-0 entering week 6 looking to continue a dominant campaign to win the CIAA championship.
Rayquan Smith is known as the king of NIL, continuing to add to his long list of deals from companies. Smith has over 60 NIL deals. Some include Coach,Ultimate Golf, and CVS.
Smith started out not knowing much about NIL. He began to do research to see how it could benefit him. From there he wrote out a business plan and sent it to 100 companies.
“I went to sleep and then woke up and I saw that only 3 companies responded. Two companies said no and one said yes which was from Smartcups. I quickly realized that being at a lower division HBCU would make it harder to get bigger deals, therefore I told myself let me figure out a way to get the same amount of money in different ways. Let me get as many NIL deals equal to the same amount of money.” Smith said.
As a new student at Virginia State, Rayquan Smith is not only motivating his teammates, he is motivating the entire HBCU community that NIL is possible at the HBCU level.
