Chicago State football's Bobby Rome II took a path to the city that you won't believe

Chicago State University’s first-ever football coach, Bobby Rome II, doesn’t know where his team will practice.

“Right now,” he said, “we have not nailed down those logistics.”

As for where the Cougars will play games, well, that’s not exactly settled, either.

“I don’t know,” Rome said. “Kind of all up in the air.”

And then there’s the minor matter of players. Chicago State doesn’t have any.

“At the moment, no,” Rome said during a phone call with the Sun-Times late in his very first official day on the job. “I haven’t recruited anybody. But things happen fast.”

They’d better. Chicago State football is on the launch pad, with the school planning to begin playing games at the Division I Football Championship Subdivision level as a member of the Northeast Conference in 2026. That’s only 91 years after Central Connecticut State, which last season represented the NEC in the FCS playoffs, began playing football. Other NEC schools have been in the football business even longer than that.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but Bobby Rome might not have that kind of time.

The 38-year-old from Norfolk, Virginia, was officially introduced by the school on Tuesday, reminding some of us who haven’t been paying the closest attention that Division I football is coming to the city. With all due respect to Northwestern, which bills itself “Chicago’s Big Ten team,” this is Roseland — the South Side — we’re talking about, not the North Shore. Chicago State will join Division II Roosevelt as well as North Park and the University of Chicago, both Division III, as city schools with football teams.

One potential game site that’s clearly worth exploring at least in the short term is Gately Stadium, a CPS facility that sits one mile from campus.

“I can guarantee regardless of where we practice, regardless of where we play, we’re going to be damn good and a big part of this community,” Rome said.

There were more than 200 applicants for the coaching position, according to the school. It would be hard to believe any of them came close to having a résumé like Rome’s.

Rome went to North Carolina to play quarterback and — what a fun coincidence — shared a QB room for a while with a fellow Tar Heels backup by the name of Ben Johnson. Perhaps you’ve heard of Johnson? Yes, the new Bears coach. (Rome also describes former Bears running backs coach and interim offensive coordinator Chris Beatty as his “mentor.”) Rome eventually transitioned into an H-back role and became a frequent starter.

It’s his head coaching path — a string of roles that reads almost like satire — that led him to this point.

It started at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia, which is so mind-numbingly far from Moscow, it takes roughly nine hours to fly there directly and is — who knew? — the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway. As the crow flies, it’s less than 20 miles to the China border and only a bit farther than that to the North Korean border. There, after having played professionally in Moscow, Rome inherited a group of students who wanted to play football and had convinced the school’s administration to give it a shot. It took awhile to put a team together, but eventually the Wild Pandas — coached by a 20-something American with an interpreter at his side — took the field.

“I didn’t think I could turn this thing into a career,” Rome said, “but I caught the bug.”

In 2018, Rome took over at Virginia University of Lynchburg, an HBCU in the National Christian College Athletic Association, where the Dragons were on a 44-game losing streak and had been outscored by a total of 428-28 the season before. At Rome’s first team meeting in the non-scholarship-based program, there were, he estimates, well under 20 players in attendance. He built the roster to over 100 and actually won a handful of games.

“I just love the challenge of taking something from the start and making it yours,” he said, “even if it’s really bad.”

In 2020, Rome arrived to coach Division II Central State, an HBCU in Ohio. Fifteen days later, the season was put on what would become a permanent hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The team had gotten in all of two days together in Rome’s long-planned offseason program. The Marauders would win three games in 2021.

After that, in 2022, Rome began a three-season stint at Florida Memorial, an HBCU in the NAIA ranks that had recently come off a tiny hiatus from football of, oh, 62 years. In Rome’s second game, the Lions lost 86-0 to Southern. He implored his players not to give up. Two weeks later, they won a game. Over the following two seasons, they won 12 more.

And the latest stop on Rome’s shake-your-head path: moving up to Division I. Moving to the big city. Moving to Chicago State, a school without a football field or even a football player.

What could go wrong?

It’s time to set up an office. It’s time to meet a bunch of high school coaches and players. It’s time to reach out to the Bears’ Johnson, because who knows what wisdom he might share? It’s time for Rome to envision something, anything, and begin to make it happen.

“We’re not looking to win tomorrow,” he said.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

“But it has to start right here in Chicago,” he said.

There’s no place better.