Former NFL wide receiver Ricky Feature and Imani D. Asukile, former director, Global and Multicultural Services at Pasco-Hernando State College and author of Black America: Hernando County, joined members of the Brooksville City Council as they unanimously passed a resolution honoring high school athletics coach, school administrator, and community leader Lorenzo Hamilton with a Life and Legacy Breakfast on what would have been his 85th birthday.
Long recognized for his community leadership, Hamilton began his career in Hernando County in 1965 as athletic director, science teacher, and head coach for football and basketball at Moton High School until Moton’s upper grades were moved to Hernando High School (HHS) in 1968 after desegregation.
In 1969, he was promoted from a physical education teacher and coach at the school to coordinator of postsecondary education at HHS and then to assistant principal at the school. He was later named the first principal of Frank W. Springstead High School in Spring Hill. During his career, Hamilton mentored hundreds of young people, including several boys who received athletic scholarships to college and NFL assignments for Ricky Feacher and Curtis Bunche, 1979 7th round draft picks for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Along the way, he served as director of the summer recreation program and enhanced programs at Kennedy Park, established a traveling girls softball team, organized community dances and Wednesday Community Night, founded the Human Relations Club at HHS, and in 1971 coordinated the first Black History Assembly at the school.
In order to bring community members of all races together, Hamilton became a founding member of the Hernando County Community Alliance.
In addition, he was a founding sponsor for Kennedy Youth Club (KYC), a quasi-community-school based Black student empowerment and cultural organization. In 1971, the KYC sponsored Maulty Moore Day, honoring the Moton High School and Bethune Cookman College graduate who was a member of both Miami Dolphins Super Bowl Championship teams.
He was also a founding member of the Hernando County Professional Organization, which sponsored Ricky Feacher Day as well as other community activities. Inducted into the Hernando High School Hall of Fame in 2011, Ricky Feacher is a former professional NFL wide receiver who played from 1976 to 1984, primarily for the Cleveland Browns football team.
Throughout his life, Hamilton used the Neighborhood Youth Corps program to mentor youth and teach them leadership skills. Lorenzo Hamilton retired in 2009 after 40 years as a school administrator. He died on Oct. 4, 2022, at the age of 84. During their regular meeting on Aug. 7, Imani D. Asukile thanked members of the Council for honoring Hamilton’s legacy. “We’re just so grateful, and we intend to try to make sure that Mr. Hamilton’s legacy does not just go away,” Asukile said. “He contributed so much to this county and to so many families – he certainly left the community in a much better place than it was when he found it.”
Ricky Feacher called the City’s honor of Hamilton “a dream come true.” “He meant so much to me,” Feacher said. “I give him a lot of credit for the success in my life.”
Brooksville will honor Hamilton on what would have been his 85th birthday during a Life and Legacy Breakfast and Summer Fun Festival at Kennedy Park on Saturday, Aug. 26. For more information, email [email protected]
