Lavelle Hawkins, Brock Hays, Marcel Yates and Kenny Young will assist the New Orleans Saints coaching staff for the 2025 preseason, as part of the Bill Walsh NFL Diversity Coaching Fellowship program.
Hawkins, Hays, Yates and Young bring a wealth of experience and success to the Saints in training camp.
Hawkins was originally a fourth round pick (126th overall) of the Tennessee Titans in the 2008 NFL Draft out of California, where he was a standout wide receiver. In six seasons with the Titans (2008-12) and San Diego Chargers (2013), the Stockton, Calif. native played in 56 games with four starts and had career totals of 71 receptions for 771 yards with one touchdown and returned 22 kickoffs for 511 yards. Hawkins retired from pro football after playing for the Canadian Football League's BC Lions in 2015, where he recorded 39 receptions for 673 yards (17.3 avg.) with three touchdowns. Hawkins has coached at his alma mater in Stockton, Edison High School. Hawkins is a cousin of former New Orleans Saints running back Lynell Hamilton
Hays is a New Orleans native, who currently serves as the running backs coach at Tulane University. He is a nine-year veteran of the college coaching ranks at Louisiana College (2016), Nicholls State (2017), Southern Mississippi (2018), Louisiana Tech (2019-21), Troy State (2022-23) and Tulane (2024-). In 2024, Hays tutored Green Wave running back Makhi Hughes, who ranked tenth in FBS rushing with 1,401 yards to go with 15 touchdowns. A 2009 graduate of Grambling State, Hays started his coaching career serving as an assistant coach at several Louisiana High Schools, including Edna Karr and Helen Cox in the New Orleans area.
Yates is a 24-year coaching veteran, who most recently spent the last three seasons as the defensive passing game coordinator/secondary coach at Texas Tech. He has also served as a defensive assistant coach at Montana State (2001-02), Boise State (2005-11 and 2014-15), Texas A&M (2012-13), Arizona (2016-19), California (2020) and Oregon (2021), serving in a coordinator role for 13 seasons. Yates was a four-year letterwinner as a defensive back at Boise State (1996-99), which coincided with the school's first four years as an FBS program. The Los Angeles, Calif. native's playing career culminated in the Broncos' first-ever bowl appearance and bowl win over Louisville in the 1999 Crucial.com Humanitarian Bowl.
Young was originally a fourth round pick (122nd overall) of the Baltimore Ravens in the 2018 NFL Draft out of UCLA and enjoyed a five-year playing career at linebacker with six teams, including being a member of the Saints practice squad in the second half of the 2022 campaign. In his playing career, Young recorded 186 career tackles with 5.5 sacks, a 79-yard interception return for a touchdown, four pass breakups, four forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries and ten special teams stops in 63 regular season games with 25 starts. A Southeastern Louisiana native, Young starred at John Curtis Christian High School before playing collegiately for the Bruins, anchoring the defense as a senior for the Patriots' state championship team. He started his coaching career in 2024 as a defensive graduate assistant at UCLA.
Established in 1987, the Bill Walsh NFL Diversity Coaching Fellowship provides NFL coaching experience to a diverse group of participants every year. The program is named after the man who conceived the idea – late Pro Football Hall of Fame head coach Bill Walsh – and exposes talented minority college coaches, high school coaches and former players to the methods and philosophies of NFL coaching staffs. Walsh introduced the concept to the league in 1987, when he brought a group of aspiring minority coaches into his San Francisco 49ers' training camp.
