Back In Black (and Orange): Ex-NFL, Oklahoma St. player Kenyatta Wright Ready For Head Coaching Debut In Oklahoma

SALLISAW, Oklahoma - When Kenyatta Wright walked inside Roland High School when interviewing for the vacant head football coaching job, he immediately felt right at home.

Not because Wright was from there, although he grew up about 30 miles west of Roland, in the town of Vian. Nor was it because he was a coach at his previous job - he was involved in football in another capacity.

No, the real reason Wright really felt at home at Roland - located in eastern Oklahoma just a few miles from the Arkansas border - was the school’s color scheme.

Orange and black.

That was more like it.

It was the colors Wright wore as a standout linebacker in college for Oklahoma State University. It was also the same colors he wore at OSU the past few years as the Cowboys’ director of football business.

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“Other than purple (Vian’s primary color), this is about the only other color I'm aware,” Wright said. I told Mrs. (Lori) Wiggins (Roland’s superintendent), I said honestly, that may have made the decision a lot easier, just because of when I walked through the doors, it was orange and black.”

And Wright’s love of OSU, and of the orange and black color scheme, is evident when he’s out and about and on the walls of Roland’s fieldhouse that is still being refurbished.

Now, after a whirlwind offseason, Wright - who also played linebacker in the National Football League for the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets before retiring in 2006 - is getting set for his head coaching debut. Roland starts its season Friday playing at traditional arch-rival Muldrow, two schools separated by nearly seven miles.

Kenyatta Wright during his playing days as a linebacker for the New York Jets | NewYorkJets.com

Riding With the Brand

Wright showed up with several of his players at a recent media day session in nearby Sallisaw sporting a black sweatshirt emblazoned with an Oklahoma State logo. Actually, it wasn’t a current logo; instead it was a throwback logo going back to the school’s days when it was known as Oklahoma A&M, an image of a cowboy riding aboard a bucking horse.

It’s a logo that Wright has adopted as one of Roland’s primary logos now.

“I have a lot of orange and black in my closets and it does have another logo on it,” Wright said. “They retired this logo at Oklahoma State and we asked our booster club to get it trademarked to use at Roland.

“It looks good; it’s a tough-branded logo, and I mean, the best colors in the world are orange and black, so it was an easy decision for me, when Ms. Wiggins talked to me about this job, but it was an easier decision when I got to be around these guys, too.”

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Getting the Itch To Coach Again

After his NFL career ended, Wright had previously served as an assistant coach at Muskogee and Fort Gibson before going back to OSU, working in a front office capacity under the Cowboys’ longtime head coach, Mike Gundy.

But just three games into last season, Gundy was fired by OSU in the wake of a home loss to Tulsa. The Cowboys won just three games in 2024 and were on their way to a 1-11 season.

OSU went in a different direction when it hired North Texas coach Eric Morris to replace Gundy after the 2025 season, and Wright wasn’t retained. He did have plenty of backup plans, as he and his wife, Amber, own several businesses, including a pizza parlor in nearby Spiro and a convenience store on the outskirts of Spiro.

So he really wasn’t looking to get back into coaching. Then he found out about the opening at Roland.

“Well, obviously I was not looking to coach anymore and just kind of be around and do what we were doing, you know, in business with my family, and after Oklahoma State, the only job that I was gonna ever take in football would have been with Coach Gundy if he got another job or went to pursue another job somewhere,” Wright said. “But Mrs. Wiggins and my cousin Tina Ramos (a track and basketball coach at Roland), they had just talked to me to come over and listen about the football program and the direction that Mrs. Wiggins wanted it to go, the community wanted to go and the school obviously, what they were looking for.”

And Wright was immediately sold. Getting to wear black and orange again didn’t hurt, either.

"It's been going really, really good,” he said. “The people here are so supportive and obviously the booster club, the cheer coach, the band, everyone here has been supportive.

“They want this. They want not just their school successful and the community successful, but they want these boys to be successful. They want this program to be successful.”

Wright noted that his wife is running their businesses while he’s focused on coaching.

Returning Roland Football To Relevance

Roland has had a rich athletic legacy in a number of sports.

Perhaps the most successful program at the school is the boys basketball program, under the direction of Hall of Fame coach Eddie Lewis, the Rangers’ coach since the early 1980s. He is one of five boys basketball coaches in the state to win at least 800 ballgames, and has taken Roland to numerous state tournaments, including this past season, when the Rangers played in the Class 3A title game.

Roland has also produced brothers Mason, Jaxon and Carson Wiggins, Lori Wiggins’ three sons, all of whom were basketball and baseball standouts. Jaxon Wiggins was a pitcher at the University of Arkansas and is now in the Chicago Cubs’ minor league system, while Carson Wiggins - who also pitched at Arkansas - was selected this summer in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft by the New York Mets.

The school’s lone state championship was won by the boys track team, in 2015.

Football hasn’t exactly been in the shadows. There have been stretches where the Rangers have enjoyed gridiron success. They turned in a perfect regular season in 2000. They won at least 10 games in 2014 and again in 2015.

But the program has experienced some hard times lately, winning a total of six ballgames over the past four seasons. And now Wright comes in looking to get football back on track.

“They’ve been very successful in basketball and track and baseball, a lot of other sports, but football has had its time in certain years,” he said. “But now we feel like we can become a football school, too.”

First-year Roland coach Kenyatta Wright (below, middle) talks during a media days session in August 2026. | Buck Ringgold

Developing More Than Just Football Players

On Wright’s first day upon taking the Roland job, he made it a point to meet with Lewis, also the school’s athletic director. Wright wanted to be on the same page with Lewis when it came to coaching the football players who also play basketball, along with convincing any basketball players to join the football squad.

“My first day, we had a meeting together and kind of sat down and showed him what our plan would be for an athlete, not just a football player, because I didn’t want to develop football players, I wanted to develop some of the greatest athletes that we possibly can in the time we have them,” Wright said. “And (Lewis is) an old football coach; he coached 23 years at Roland as a football coach, a lot of people don’t know that and he digs football games, he loves it. … He was one of those top guys, so Eddie loves football and just wants us to be successful and he has no problem sharing athletes.

“But we had to get some of those guys out of the gym; you see them here now, and I tell them, ‘I don’t care if you love football; it can be your second sport, when you’re playing, we just want you to love the game and love playing it,’ and it’s going to make them better in basketball as well.”

Embracing Offense

As a former linebacker, Wright generally tends to consider himself more of a defensive coach. But now that he is in charge of a program, Wright is getting heavily involved with the offense.

“I’m not an offensive guy; honestly, I hate offense, I’m a defensive guy, but I love it now as a head coach because you’ve got to love all three sides of the ball; special teams, offense and defense,” Wright said. “Well, we know in this game, you’ve got to have space players, and that’s on offense, and then on defense, we want to condense the space by being very, very aggressive, so I’m excited about the offensive scheme because previously, they were a very run-heavy team, didn’t really throw the ball around, but you could see these guys’ wingspans that I’ve got with me.

“They have great wingspan, they are great space players and we’re going to have to sling the ball around, but I also have some running backs that are going to pound it, too, so we’re going to be a multi-dimensional offensive scheme.”

Regarding defense, Wright will have his unit be based out of a 3-4 scheme. He also had his players study some of the best defensive coaches in recent memory.

“It’s going to be simple: We’re going to fly to the football and cause havoc when we get there, and we’re going to attack the quarterback,” Wright said. “That’s one thing I tell these guys with me that when they play a lot of heavy defense, like we’re going to get the pond off of his island and make a move; that’s what we’re going to do on defense, and I love those schemes.

“They’re getting a taste of Buddy Ryan, Rob Ryan, Wade Phillips, Nick Saban, and I’m throwing all those names in there because I’m showing them, hey, this is what we’re doing, and they love it and they’re eating it up and I’m excited to be able to do it against someone else.”

Staying In Touch

Wright remarked that he still keeps in constant contact with Gundy, especially now more than ever with Wright back in coaching and Gundy having some more free time.

“Coach Gundy, we talk every week, and we talk probably a couple times a week more now because I’m asking him offensive questions and just program-building, culture systems, how to engage these athletes in a better and more meaningful way,” Wright said.

“He knew more about Roland than I did because of the recruiting stuff and watching. And Ms. Wiggins, (Gundy’s) boys played baseball with (Wiggins’ sons), and they were friends and they knew each other for a long time, so he has a lot of historical emphasis that he knew about Roland that he was telling me about and the stuff I would have to learn. But Mike is doing good, and he has a lot of time on his hands right now.”

Wright added he is planning to have Gundy come down to Roland sometime later this season and talk to the players and maybe take in a game.

In addition, Wright has carried over the tenets that defined Gundy’s tenure at OSU, the acronym D.A.T. (Discipline, Accountability, Toughness). One of Gundy’s sayings is also emblazoned on one of the doors of the fieldhouse.

A sign with a quote from former Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy is on the doors of the Roland (Okla.) football fieldhouse. | Buck Ringgold

High On OSU’s New Coach

Even though Wright isn’t at OSU anymore, he is high on the new coach, Morris.

“Coach Morris, he’s got his guys; he brought 18 dudes from North Texas and he brought his system to Oklahoma State,” Wright said. (Defensive coordinator) Skyler Cassity, I remember when he was a baby at Oklahoma State (during Wright’s playing days) because his dad was our (defensive backs) coach. … I think he’s got the pedigree on defense to rebuild the system that they need at Oklahoma State and they’ve got the players; they spent $21 million this year, so they better have some players out there that can play.

“We didn’t spend that much; I wish we did, I still would probably be there, but I’m glad to be at Roland.”

No Generation Gap

At the recent media day session in Sallisaw, one of Wright’s players was asked if he had seen film of Wright as a player.

“Yes, I have,” running back Alexander Criswell replied. “He was very aggressive.”

“I played it some; my sons played it more,” Wright said. “Every time you put up the Madden sticks at our facility either with the Jets or Buffalo, it cost you, so I didn’t play it that much in the facility, I played it against my sons.”

Wright was also featured in the highly acclaimed NFL 2K5 video game, though in the original rosters from the 2004 season, he was listed as a free agent.

A screenshot of Kenyatta Wright on the NFL 2K5 video game | Buck Ringgold

Another Roland player, linebacker Alex Brant, was asked who his favorite athlete was. Brant replied Fred Warner, the San Francisco 49ers linebacker, which elicited a response from Wright.

“If (Brant) can play like Fred Warner, we’ll be really, really good on defense,” Wright said.

A Rivalry Game Debut

Wright’s first game as a head coach is against the Rangers’ main rival, Muldrow. The teams are very familiar with one another, and it’s not common to see players from both sides hang out together off the field.

Since 2006, Muldrow has won 12 of the last 20 games against Roland, including each of the last two seasons, scoring a combined total of 115 points.

“This is the first time that I’m the head coach at the rival school,” Wright said. “When I was at Vian, we played (Muldrow); Fort Gibson, we played them, and to me, it wasn’t a rivalry. But this is bragging rights. … I tried to look up some of the historical significance of this game and they used to like play it on Thursdays and shut the towns down, and it was the only game in (Sequoyah) County.

“Obviously, we’re playing on Friday this year, but to these guys, it means everything, and it means everything to me to win this game for these guys because when I’m at the end of my coaching career, I’m not going to ever care about how many games I won and lost. The only thing I’m going to care about is how these guys’ experience was during those games that we played and I tell them that, and so this rivalry is very, very big and it’s the game we’re targeting right now no matter what in front of us.”

And Wright is just eager to finally return to the sidelines come Friday night. While wearing black and orange, of course.

“I’m excited about this team; obviously, it’s orange and black,” he said. “It’s been a team that, since I’ve been there, has been working really, really hard and we’re excited to get the product on the football field and kind of prove that we can stake our claim as one of the top teams in 2A.”

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