Skip To Main Content

Southern University

Roman Banks

Roman Banks

  • Title
    Director of Athletics
  • Email
    roman_banks@subr.edu
  • Phone
    225-771-2712
  • Twitter
    @CoachBanks_SU
  • Alma Mater
    Northwestern State (1993)
  • Hometown
    Shreveport, LA
  • Years At SU
    15th Year
Entering in his 15th year at Southern University and ninth as the Director of Athletics Coach Roman Banks continues to elevate the standard of Jaguars Athletics. 
 
He previously served as both the Interim Director of Athletics and Head Men's Basketball Coach from 2015-2017. 
 
Banks’s and his team helped coin the motto “Southern is The Standard, Where Champions are Made and Legends are Forged” and he has made sure that the Standard has been restored and more. 
 
Coach Banks has been distinguished by many accomplishments, including successfully restructuring and redefining the mission of the athletic department, adding personnel in numerous administrative/support areas, and recruiting a highly skilled team of coaches, administrators, and support staff.
 
During his tenure, Banks has led SU Athletics to 22 championships and eight NCAA postseason appearances. For the first time since the 2013-2014 academic calendar, Southern University Athletics reached or won the SWAC Championship in all four of the major revenue sports. 
  • Baseball (4)
2019 SWAC Western Division Champions
2022 SWAC Western Division Champions
2019 SWAC Tournament Champions 
2021 SWAC Tournament Champions 
2019 NCAA Baseball Regional
2021 NCAA Baseball Regional 
  • Bowling (3)
2023 SWAC Regular Season Champions 
2024 SWAC Regular Season Champions
2025 SWAC Regular Season Champions
2022 SWAC Tournament Runner-Up
2024 SWAC Tournament Runner-Up
  • Football (4)
2018 SWAC Western Division Champions
2019 SWAC Western Division Champions
2022 SWAC Western Division Champions
2024 SWAC Western Division Champions
  • Women’s Basketball (6)

2017-18 SWAC Regular Season Champions
2018-19 SWAC Regular Season Champions
2019 SWAC Tournament Champions
2023 SWAC Tournament Champions 
2024-25 SWAC Regular Season Champions
2025 SWAC Tournament Champions
2019 NCAA Tournament
2023 NCAA Tournament
2025 NCAA Tournament
  • Men's Basketball (4)
2013-14 SWAC Regular Season Champions
2013 SWAC Tournament Champions
2016 SWAC Tournament Champions 
2024-25 SWAC Regular Season Champions
2013 NCAA Tournament
2016 NCAA Tournament
2015 SWAC Tournament Runner-Up
  • Soccer (1)
2024 SWAC Tournament Championship
2024 NCAA Tournament  
 
Southern student-athletes are excelling academically under banks’ leadership. The cumulative grade-point average for all Southern Athletics teams has risen from 2.63 to 3.24 during his tenure, with nearly 68 percent of student-athletes earning 3.0 or higher GPAs during the 2024-25 academic year. Several teams earned perfect 1,000 Academic Progress Rates between 2018-24 with seven programs earning multi-year APRs of 1,000. In 2024-25, 164 Southern student-athletes earned recognition on the SWAC Academic Honor Roll. 
 
During Banks time at Southern, 783 student athletes have earned their degrees and 943 have been named to the SWAC Academic Honor Roll.
 
He, has been working hard to improve the standard of Jaguars Athletics through corporate sponsorship and other fundraising initiatives. Highlighted by season ticket sales increasing yearly, SU Athletics Gala, SU Golf Tournament and leading the SWAC in attendance in basketball for the past six seasons. 
 
Among the facilities highlights and numerous upgrades plans for the future, were the completion of the $1.2 million new track inside A.W. Mumford Stadium. Which entailed foundation work, leveling and installation of a new track surface, steeple chase and new runways surface for field events helping to bring back the Pelican Relays. Upgrading the facility at Lady Jaguar Field with new netting system and structural improvements. Most recently the 1.2 million new start of the art hellas matrix helix polyethylene extruded monofilament synthetic turf that is being installed in A.W. Mumford Stadium. 
 
The Student-Athlete Development Center (SADC) located next to the JK Haynes School of Nursing building. The SADC features meeting space, offices for members of the SU Athletics Academic and Compliance Staffs, a computer lab, quiet study rooms, mental health wellness areas and a fueling station perfect for student-athletes to grab a nutritious snack in between practice and going to class. New soccer locker room space inside A.W. Mumford Fieldhouse, new playing surface for the men’s and women’s basketball teams and video scores tables inside the F.G. Clark Activity Center. 
 
In January 2022, the Jaguar Sports Network online portal debuted to showcase Jaguars Athletics’ contests with new video platforms, as well as established a biweekly tv show Overtime Live TV Show “A Closer Look Into Jaguars Athletics” to provide an in-house platform to promote athletics and create additional sponsorship inventory for the department. In 2024-25, Jaguar Sports Network reached the 150,000-streaming viewership and continues to connect fans to SU athletics and for first time ever, Southern football, volleyball, soccer, women’s basketball, men’s basketball, and baseball games were video streamed online in the same season through JSN.
 
He guided SU Athletics and helped finalize a five-year agreement with Under Armour to be the official sports apparel outfitter of the Southern University Athletic Department. SU was the first school in the SWAC that signed to Under Armour. 

The Shreveport, Louisiana native was named the 12th head coach in Jaguar Men’s Basketball History on May 1, 2011. He guided the Jaguars for 7 years compiling a 114-85 overall record, 573% winning percentage and 77-31 SWAC Record .713% winning percentage. In that time, he never lost to in-state rival Grambling State going 12-0 vs the Tigers. He accomplished two NCAA Tournament appearances in 2013 and 2016, two SWAC Tournament Championships 2013 and 2016, one SWAC Tournament Championship Runner-Up 2015, one SWAC Regular Season Championship 2014 and one HBCU National Championship 2013. 

Banks is no stranger to Southern University his father (SU Hall Of Famer Cleophus Banks), Brother (Carlos Sample), Godfather (Bob Love), Son (Tre’lun Banks) all played at Southern University. His daughter (Kennedi Banks) is a former SU cheerleader, and nephews (Collyn Givens) played and was an assistant football coach at SU (Ckelby Givens) is a current football player.

Before coming to Southern Banks had served as Southeastern Louisiana University Associate Head Basketball Coach. During his tenure in Hammond, Banks was part of a program that produced seven winning seasons (the most of any Division 1 school in the state of Louisiana) and 140 total wins (second to LSU's 144 wins from 2003-11). 

Regarded as one of the top recruiters in the state of Louisiana, Banks spent six seasons as an assistant coach at Southern University where he served as the Jaguars’ chief recruiter. While at Southern, he was responsible for the recruitment of two-time Southwestern Athletic Conference Player of the Year Adarrial Smylie and Dionte Harvey, the 1997-98 SWAC Newcomer of the Year. 

Banks, who played at Northwestern State and is remembered for sinking a decisive free throw with 12 seconds left in the Demons’ Dec. 7, 1988 85-82 upset over the University of Kentucky at Rupp Arena, is all over the NSU record books as one of the top players in school history after his career as a guard from 1987-92. He ranks seventh all-time in scoring (1,454 points, 118 games, 12.3 average), second in assists (515, 4.4 average, set a career-high 157 assists in a season), third in steals (190, 1.5 spg). Banks was an All-Southland Conference selection (second team) in 1990, when he was also on the six-man All-Southland Tournament team. A severe hamstring injury halted his initial senior season in 1990-91, but he came back to lead the Demons in four categories as a senior in 1991-92, including the Demons in scoring (16.2 ppg) and helped lead NSU to their first winning season in five years where the team establish 23 school records while NSU topped NCAA Division 1 in points per game (95.0 ppg) Banks was named honorable mention All-Southland Conference and was a third-team All-Louisiana selection by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. He was inducted into the Northwestern State “N” Club Hall of Fame in October of 2011.

Banks started his coaching career at Shreveport’s Green Oaks High School before spending two years at Southern University-Shreveport, where he was the Athletic Director and head men’s basketball coach. A native of Shreveport, Banks was a three-time All-District 2-4A selection at Captain Shreve High School where he averaged 22.7 points and 7.6 assists as a senior in helping lead the Gators to a 28-7 record.

Banks, a member of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA), Minority Opportunities Athletic Association (MOAA), Louisiana Association of Basketball Coaches (LABC), the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) and Black Coaches Association, is married to the former Tiffaney McCoy, a guidance counselor at Baton Rouge Magnet High School. They are the parents of two children, son Tre’lun (28) and daughter Kennedi (24).

Coach Banks overall coaching record is 270-224 and at Southern 114-85 (77-31).