The Andre Dawson Classic is back for the 18th time this weekend to put baseball at Historically Black Colleges and Universities on center stage.
And the teams are ready — including Dawson’s own alma mater, Florida A&M University, and the school that’s been there from the beginning, Southern University.
“It means a little bit more to us to be in this tournament, I think, because it’s named after Andre Dawson,” Florida A&M head coach Jamey Shouppe said at the Dawson Classic coaches’ press conference on Tuesday. “What he did on the field, our players and the players in this tournament [might] never be able to equal that. But the type of man that he is, it speaks volumes for him being the guy that this tournament’s named after.”
The annual round-robin college baseball tournament will be hosted by MLB at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach, Fla., for the third consecutive time. That’s the site of historic Dodgertown, where Robinson himself once took the field after breaking baseball’s color barrier.
The 2026 Andre Dawson Classic will feature seven HBCU baseball teams — Florida A&M, Southern, Alabama State, Bethune-Cookman, Grambling State, Jackson State and Texas Southern — as well as Yale, which will be the first Ivy League team to play in the Classic.
“I’m excited for the guys,” Texas Southern interim head coach Ely Gallego said. “They’re looking forward to it. And it’s just overall the opportunity to enjoy this tournament and what it means to HBCU baseball. Being able to put these colleges on a bigger platform is huge.”
This year’s games will be held from Friday through Sunday, starting with Texas Southern vs. Jackson State on Friday at 11 a.m. ET and finishing with Florida A&M vs. Southern on Sunday at noon ET. All games will be streamed live on MLB.com, and MLB Network will broadcast two of Saturday’s matchups: Yale vs. Jackson State at 4 p.m. ET and Bethune-Cookman vs. Florida A&M at 8 p.m. ET.
The Dawson Classic, which was first held in 2008, was originally called the Urban Invitational and held at the MLB Youth Academy in Compton, Calif. Over the years, it was also hosted in Houston, at the Astros’ Minute Maid Park, and in New Orleans. The tournament was renamed after the Hall of Famer Dawson, who regularly attends it, in 2018.
Before Dawson hit 438 home runs, made eight All-Star teams and won an MVP trophy in the big leagues, he played college ball for Florida A&M, where he walked onto the team in 1973 and ultimately earned a scholarship. His school now honors his legacy by playing in the tournament.
“As long as they have this tournament and invite us, we’ll be here — especially now that it’s named after Andre Dawson,” Shouppe said. “We just try to teach what he did with his career. You never heard anything bad about the guy when he played. So we try to teach our kids the importance of that — to grow up to be men that represent their families, represent their university, represent everything about themselves the best they can.”
Southern has been playing in the tournament since the beginning. It’s the only school to participate in every version of the Andre Dawson Classic. Longtime head coach Roger Cador, who coached Southern for 33 years from 1985-2017, was the heart and soul of the Dawson Classic, and now current head coach Chris Crenshaw has taken up the mantle.
“Coach Cador was instrumental in getting this going. And then the changing over to ‘Andre Dawson’ was a big deal for me,” Crenshaw said Tuesday. “Andre Dawson was one of my favorite players to watch growing up. The Cubs were on WGN when I was little, so I got to watch him play a lot when he was playing with the Cubs. But we’re excited. I like coming down there to play in this.”
Since the inaugural tournament in 2008, more than 25 HBCU baseball players who’ve played in it have gone on to be selected in the MLB Draft. The tournament also features dozens of Nike RBI and MLB Youth Academy alumni on the HBCUs’ rosters every year. And HBCUs have produced multiple MLB Hall of Famers, like Dawson and Southern alum Lou Brock.
Besides Southern, other HBCU teams playing in the 2026 Dawson Classic are also past participants. One, Bethune-Cookman, is returning to the Classic for the first time since 2011.
“I’m just honored for us to be a part of this. It’s been kind of a long time coming,” said Bethune-Cookman head coach Jonathan Hernandez. “The opportunity to take the guys down to Vero Beach, to the historic — what was Dodgertown, and now named after Jackie Robinson — we’re looking forward to the opportunity. I thought it was the right time for us to get down there.”
Alabama State, on the other hand, is playing in the tournament for the 10th time, and for the eighth year in a row.
“Every time that we get to be around these coaches, we know how competitive this tournament is going to be. We definitely go into this setting knowing that it’s gonna be good baseball,” Alabama State head coach José Vazquez said.
“Putting these programs on the platform to where we can be seen nationally, and be able to show the world what we can do year in and year out and how good the programs are … is something that we look forward to. I’ve always said it, and I’m gonna continue to say it: We’ve been a part of it for 10 years. As long as Major League Baseball wants us in this tournament, we’re always gonna say ‘Yes.’ And hopefully that will be a long time. It’s first class.”
