FLORENCE, Ala. -- Former NFL receiver Samie Parker has joined Brent Dearmon's University of North Alabama football coaching staff as receivers coach.
Parker served as a quality control coach with the wide receivers at Rice University ion 2022. He previously was at Washington State University, where he served as a recruiting assistant in 2021.
"Samie will be a huge asset to our program and wide receiver room," said Dearmon. "He is a former NFL player and is known for his wide receiver development."
Parker was a standout in both football and track at Oregon from 2000-03, earning All-American honors in track. He is the Ducks’ career leader in receiving yards (2,716) while sharing the career (178) and single-season (77) reception records. He also set school bowl game records with 16 receptions for 200 yards against Minnesota to earn MVP honors in the 2003 Sun Bowl. That followed a nine-catch, 162-yard effort one year earlier against Colorado in the Fiesta Bowl.
He was a fourth-round pick out of Oregon by Kansas City in 2004 and caught 110 passes for 1,529 yards and seven touchdowns in 47 games (31 starts) over four seasons, from 2004-07, with the Chiefs. He played with the Las Vegas Locomotives of the UFL in 2009 and 2010. He also played in the Arena Football League for three seasons, concluding his career in 2013 as a member of the Los Angeles Kiss.
He began his coaching career later in 2013 at MidAmerica Nazarene. He was the assistant wide receivers coach at Long Beach Poly High School in 2015 where he coached Jack Jones (4th round pick by New England in 2022). He worked as a coaching intern with the Chiefs in 2016 and 2018, helping develop Tyreek Hill and Demarcus Robinson as rookies in 2016 and DeAnthony Thomas in 2018.
He coached for one season at Whittier College before moving to The Spring League beginning in 2018. There, he sent five of his players on to the USFL (La'Michael Pettway, Michigan; Cam Echols-Luper and Woody Brandom, New Jersey; DelVon Hardaway & Isaiah Hennie, Pittsburgh) and saw two others make NFL practice squads: Blake Jackson (Cleveland 2018) Julian Williams (Atlanta 2019).
He has twice served on the staff of the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl. In 2015 he coached Jaydon Mickens (a member of Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl team) while in 2022 he mentored Braylon Sanders (FA Miami Dolphins) and Dai'Jean Dixon (FA New Orleans Saints).
