Hines Ward Reportedly Heading To Arizona State As Wide Receivers Coach

Former Super Bowl MVP Hines Ward reportedly has himself a new gig.

According to reports, Ward is headed to Tempe where he will become the new wide receivers coach at Arizona State.

 Hey, if you need someone to coach dudes on how to run routes and catch a football, you'd be hard-pressed to find many better people who know what they're talking about.

Ward, of course, spent 14 seasons in the NFL from 1998 to 2011, all of them with the Pittsburgh Steelers. For a good portion of that, he was a favorite target of Ben Roethlisberger back when the team was winning Super Bowls back in the mid-aughts. 

According to The Athletic, current Sun Devils head coach Kenny Dillingham originally hired coaches with ties to the Phoenix area. Hines Ward doesn't have that, but he's a big name people and recruits know with a pedigree as both a player and a coach.

In his playing days, Ward racked up 1000 receptions, over 12,000 receiving yards, and 85 touchdowns, as well as four Pro Bowl selections and two Super Bowl wins.

However, once his playing days were over, Ward didn't go the coaching route, he took the other path that a lot of former athletes take and went into broadcasting. Ward started that second career with NBC, and according to Pro Football Talk he did a stint with CNN too, something I have zero recollection of, but apparently it happened.

Hines Ward most recently coached in the XFL. (Photo by John Rivera/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

In 2017, he started coaching, first as an intern with the Steelers, then as an offensive assistant with the New York Jets for a couple of seasons.

After that, it was off to the college football ranks with Florida Atlantic University. He did that for one year before it was back to the pros… with the XFL's San Antonio Brahmas. He was let go from that gig when the XFL and USFL merged to form the current UFL.