NATCHEZ — “Are you brave enough?”

When Alcorn State head football coach Earnest Collins met with the roughly 30 fans in attendance at the Alcorn State School of Nursing on Tuesday, he presented a challenge to those fans in the form of that question.

It was a question that Collins said was inspired by the attitude of his players this past fall, when they were going through a coaching change for the third time in three years.

“Anytime in an athletics program that you have a coaching change, it’s rough on the players, and a lot of people don’t understand that,” Collins said. “It was rough on them, and to their credit, they did a good job in dealing with all that.”

Because of the players’ ability to handle adversity last fall in the midst of a coaching change, Collins used that question, and the story behind it, to rally the Alcorn State fan base to show support for the Braves throughout the upcoming season.

Collins spent the evening at Alcorn State’s nursing school hosting a “meet the coaches” event, in which he and his assistant coaches made themselves and their plans for the fall known to the fans in attendance.

Collins stressed the positives of getting to build a personal relationship with the team’s fan base as an important reason for hosting the event.

“A lot of times, folks don’t know you face to face,” Collins said. “They don’t get a chance to sit and talk to you face to face, or get a chance to go out and mingle with you up close and personal.”

Zelmarine Anderson-Murphy, a fan in attendance, came away very impressed with the new coaching staff.

“They’re young, intelligent, energetic, they’re ready to go to work and they seem to be very dedicated to their jobs, specifically to the welfare of the students there,” Anderson-Murphy said.

Collins and his assistants spoke about a wide variety of topics surrounding his team this coming season. They said that they stressed recruiting speed this past signing period, and feel they’ll be able to run the ball more than last year. They also said that the defensive players were either going to go after the ball and tackle well, or be benched.

“I think last year, we had some decent young men, but I don’t know if all of them bought in that needed to buy in,” Collins said. “Our senior group is not a big group, but it’s a good group.

“I think we have great senior leadership — and not just the seniors. I think the guys that were in the trenches last year, I think that leadership is going to help us a lot.”

Said Anderson-Murphy, “I’m excited. Alcornites fall down, but we get up, and we will regroup and come back.”