If you lived in Hampton, Virginia in the early 2000s, you might have witnessed a performance from one of the most dynamic musical acts of its time.
That would be the Hampton football team choir, which included about 40 players. Charles Huff, now Memphis football's head coach, was an offensive lineman at Hampton from 2001 to 2005 and was part of the choir.
"Out of the 40 in the choir, I knew at least three of them could sing," said Joe Taylor, the longtime Hampton coach. "The rest of them did a hell of a job of humming."
Huff takes issue with the premise of the choir actually singing.
"I wouldn't call it singing," he said. "We were projecting sound."
The group had only about three songs, he said. They'd go around to churches around the Hampton area
and actually became pretty well-known in the local community. For Taylor, it was about showing Hampton's players that they could get through difficult moments if they stick together. And while Huff isn't bringing it back at Memphis, the experience did inform the way he looks at team building, even now.
"Sometimes helping kids bond is forcing them or showing them things that they both like or groups of them may like but they don't know," Huff said. "Bible study is one of them. Probably no one's walking through the locker room saying, 'Hey, everybody get together and have Bible study.' But if you say we're going to have Bible study Wednesday at 8 o'clock, before you know it, 50 guys show up."
Twenty-five years after he began his freshman season at Hampton, Huff is preparing to lead Memphis football for the first time. The Tigers kick off their season on the road at UNLV on Aug. 29 (9 p.m. CT, FOX).
He's doing it with a roster made up almost entirely of transfers and with a new coaching staff.
Because of that, he has made team bonding a priority throughout the offseason. He also has built intense loyalty from players throughout his time as a head coach elsewhere, and there's a contingent that followed him from Marshall to Southern Miss and now to Memphis.
Mike Montgomery played for Huff at Southern Miss in 2025 and earned All-Sun Belt honors. He could've gone to a power conference school but didn't even take other visits after he entered the transfer portal.
"When we're lined up and we're ready to go play, Coach Huff makes me want to run by somebody's face," Montgomery said. "Coach Huff makes you want to play for him."
When Huff arrived at Memphis in December 2025, he immediately gained fans in the city by declaring he was ready to "close the gap" and take the Tigers from a good team to a great team. While "close the gap" has been a Huff staple going back to his time at Marshall, its meaning in Memphis is unique and became a rallying cry during the offseason.
For years, the Tigers have been positioned as one of the top teams in the American Conference, and in the Group of Six as a whole. There's no doubt they have the resources to be the best team in the conference. But while the Tigers have won 29 games the past three seasons, they haven't reached a conference title game since 2019.
"A message to the nation: Tigers are apex predators in the world," Huff said at his introductory news conference. "Apex predators are at the top of the food chain. Their job is to reset and establish order in the ecosystem. It's time for the Memphis Tigers to get to the top of the food chain and establish order and consistency in the college football ecosystem."
Huff's confidence has been a through-line in his career and especially during his first offseason at Memphis. And it obviously has helped him grow from a walk-on offensive lineman to an assistant under James Franklin and Nick Saban and finally to a head coach.
And it's a good thing his coaching career worked out. Because this is how Taylor would grade Huff's singing skills.
"He had to have a day job," Taylor said. "He couldn't make a living with it. I'll just put it like that."
Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or on X @thejonahdylan.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: How Memphis coach Charles Huff's college choir taught him about team bonding
