Orange Blossom Classic Executive Director Kendra Bulluck-Major shares her story

On September 3rd, two well-known HBCU schools will meet at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida to participate in a celebration of this great game we love, football, in what’s becoming a great yearly event. The Orange Blossom Classic.

Jackson State University’s Tigers (JSU) and the Rattlers of Florida A&M University (FAMU) are the participants of the next Orange Blossom Classic, and one week before the Philadelphia Eagles open their regular-season campaign on the road in Foxborough Massachusetts versus the New England Patriots, I would highly recommend that you stop by if you have a moment.

Heck, I’d recommend that you stop by even if you don’t! This is one of those things you need to place on the calendar. Did we mention the game is played in Miami, Florida at Hard Rock Stadium?

As we officially turned the page from one month to another in preparation for those April showers bringing us a few May flowers, I had the pleasure of sitting with the event’s executive director.

Why Eagles fans should care about the Orange Blossom Classic

Male-dominated industry… We have heard the words so often that, if you’re like most, you’re sick of hearing them. It’s still hard to deny that it’s an accurate depiction of football at every level. Thankfully, we’re seeing more diversity than we once did.

Nicole Lynn’s negotiation of the Jalen Hurts deal turned the world upside down. We’re seeing more contributions from extraordinary women in scouting and coaching (see Eagles assistant Autumn Lockwood). We have also seen inroads made in everything from officiating to management, but we haven’t met a ton of women who own the rights to a sports property. Kendra Bullock-Major is changing that narrative.

An entrepreneur and business professional, one who is the owner of more than 18 years of experience in business development, management, and acquisition, this amazing young woman obtained the rights to the Orange Blossom Classic in 2018.

In 2021, we saw the first iteration of the long-time classic create magic under her watch. With her direction, the event has been featured during the past two NCAA football seasons on ESPN2. That included an online stream of the halftime show.

Last year the viewership exceeded one million viewers which provided wonderful exposure for the student-athletes and institutions that participated. It was also the second-highest-rated HBCU game on the platform.

I managed to track Bullock-Major down to get some insight into her thoughts passion and vision for the event going forward. What follows are some of the results of that conversation.

Discussing the Orange Blossom Classic with its executive director, Kendra Bullock-Major

So in a complex sports world with so much competition for games such as this, how does one go from ‘interest’ to ‘I want to be the executive director of anything’?

Bullock-Major gave a straightforward response, stating, “I started researching, finding mentors, and learning more about the original Orange Blossom Classic, and its history. I talked to individuals who had done something similar.

“My mentors told me ‘Hey, this is where you start, what you should do’. A lot of it came from my having a strong background in business. Knowing the business landscape, and what you need in order to be successful definitely helped. Everything began there. It wasn’t something that happened overnight. It took about ten years.”

JSU and FAMU are completely capable of packing houses without one another’s help, but throw those two in a pot and stir them together, and one creates a mixture that can only be rivaled by good food at a premier tailgating festival. The Orange Blossom Classic has done that flawlessly.

It isn’t often that we get a behind-the-scenes view of seeing a college football classic being pieced together. We were allowed into some of the processes here.

“I can’t overstate the value of research, Bullock Major told us. “I studied which teams would help us gain attendance. I studied the conferences. I asked questions about which teams generate 15,000 to 20,000 in-person fans and what Miami’s visitors and tourism bureaus wanted to see.

“For them to invest, they wanted to make sure there are out-of-state attendees. I put together a team that helped me create studies, but again, a lot of what we did came from what we had done in other forms of business. The sports component was sprinkled in as well.”

That ‘ten-year process’ seems to have paid off mightily. Bullock-Major began the process of reintroducing a long-time HBCU classic in 2009. With COVID-19 stalling life as we all knew it, the plan shifted from a 2020 return to one in 2021.

As mentioned, Jackson State University (JSU) and Florida A&M University (FAMU) are again the participants. As exciting as all of that sounds, it’s hard to avoid looking ahead and asking about what the future holds. As you might have expected, I couldn’t help myself.

“Well, the original Orange Blossom Classic featured Florida A&M as the staple,” she said. “Every year FAMU would play another team, and whoever won that particular game was seen as the champion. Over these last three years, similarly, we have been able to duplicate that.”

The beautiful thing about this being a new classic is you have those rivalries like The Bayou Classic featuring Grambling and Southern and the Florida Classic featuring Florida A&M and Bethune Cookman. We have an opportunity to reimagine what that looks like, meaning we don’t necessarily have to stick to a particular rivalry. ”

That’s music to my ears. As a former attendee of Johnson C. Smith University, I wouldn’t mind seeing an appearance by the Golden Bulls. Bullock-Major continued, “We get the opportunity to bring in other institutions, so for now, it looks like what the Orignal Orange Blossom Classic looks like which was FAMU versus another opponent.

“Where we ultimately want to go is to bring in as many schools as possible. We can, maybe, feature the SWAC versus a MEAC team. With our ability to provide payouts to the schools that participate, it gives us the opportunity to assist as many HBCUs as possible.”

“I’m a parent. If I’m trying to expose my children to something, and I want to branch out and put money aside and give them an experience, I want that experience to be representative of them”

Take a moment and imagine the atmosphere that can only be enjoyed by taking in the NCAA football experience. Imagine being surrounded by professionals at an outdoor stadium where the weather is nice. Imagine this being your first or your 131st HBCU football game. So why pick a game such as this over maybe a traditional big-time FBS game?

Her response was sheer perfection.

“The number one benefit is representation,” Bullock-Major stated. “I’m a parent. If I’m trying to expose my children to something, and I want to branch out and put money aside and give them an experience, I want that experience to be representative of them.

“The difference between those PWIs versus classics is the latter is giving you more than a football game. You’re getting culture. You are, again, getting an experience. You get to see the Marching 100 (Florida A&M’s marching band). You get to witness The Sonic Boom of the South (Jackson State’s marching band).

“As African-American men and women, you get to see 50,000 people that look like you. 60 percent of them are college educated and alumni, so I’m going to take that chance and say ‘I’m going to take my child to see something that is representative of what I want my child to be, and I want them to see successful people who look like them to teach them if they can do it, you can do it too.”

Seriously, what needs to be said after hearing that? As you may have imagined, we most certainly circled the aforementioned Eagles’ regular-season opener on our schedules. We have officially added September 3rd’s Orange Blossom Classic to our to-do list as well.

Additional events include September 2nd’s OBC Parade, the HBCU Reunion on the Yard Presented by Celsius, The Battle of the Bands, and The Pre-Game Greek Mixer among other activities that begin in July… yes, July.

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