The Hampton Pirates hired Van Malone as the football team’s next head coach. Malone spent the previous seven seasons as an assistant at Kansas State.
Malone played at Texas from 1990 through 1993 and was drafted by the Detroit Lions. He played with the Lions for four seasons and later signed with the Arizona Cardinals before the 1998 season. In 1999, he started his coaching career at the high school level and moved up to the college level in 2003 as the wide receivers coach at North Dakota State.
In 2004, he became the cornerbacks and special teams coach at Western Michigan and took the same roles at North Texas in 2005. From 2006 through 2009, he was the defensive backs coach for Texas A&M before joining Tulsa in 2010 and 2011 as the defensive backs coach and recruiting coordinator. From 2012 through 2014, he coached the secondary at Oklahoma State, followed by a three-year stint at SMU as the defensive coordinator from 2015 through 2017.
In 2018, he was the defensive quality control coach at Mississippi State before landing at Kansas State in 2019 as the cornerbacks coach. In 2020, he was promoted to associate head coach, passing game coordinator, and cornerbacks coach, which he held through the 2025 season.
Malone will take over a Hampton program that has struggled since moving to the CAA in 2022. The Pirates went 4-7 overall in 2022, but finished 1-7 and in a tie for last in the CAA. In 2023, Hampton improved to 5-6 overall and 3-5 in the CAA. Hampton fired Robert Prunty in April 2024 and named Trent Boykin as the interim coach. Boykin and the Pirates went 5-7 overall and 2-6 in the CAA in 2024. In 2025, Hampton went 2-10 overall and 0-8 in the CAA to finish in last place. Boykin was fired in November after going 7-17 in two seasons.
Photo Credit to Kansas State University Athletics
