VC's new boys basketball coach legend in Atlanta

There is no doubt, Vermilion Catholic High School now has a good boys basketball coach.
Mike McCoy was hired earlier this year as a teacher and the new boys basketball coach. After three games, his VC club is 2-1.
The name Mike McCoy is not a familiar one to anyone in Louisiana. The Vermilion Catholic job is probably his first basketball job in the state. McCoy is a legendary basketball coach in Georgia.
In Georgia, he coached for 30 years in Atlanta. Along the way, he has won a Class 5A girls state title, was voted the county (the same as parish) coach of the year four times, region coach of the year three times and was named the state coach of the year in 2003 after winning the state title.
In 2011, he stunned his players when he informed them he was quitting Parkview High to move to Mississippi to help care for his wife, Inga’s ailing mother. He coached at Parkview for 11 seasons. He steered them to a Final Four appearance in 2009.
When he left Parkview, he went to coach the boys at Presbyterian Christian School in Mississippi for two years and then recently retired.
In 30-plus years of coaching high school, he has accumulated 308 wins and 122 losses (counting VC record).
So how did a high school coach from Atlanta land at Vermilion Catholic?
His son, Jordan, is an assistant baseball coach at Vermilion Catholic the last couple of years. Jordan, who graduated from Harrisburg, Miss. signed a baseball scholarship with Nicholls State as a pitcher. He played for two years and graduated with honors.
After college, Jordan moved to Abbeville to play summer baseball in Lafayette. He also helped coach baseball and taught at VC when he was not playing summer baseball with the Cane Cutters.
When his father heard VC was looking for a boys basketball coach, he applied and was hired. He is now spending a lot of time with his son, who assists him on the bench.
“I love it here,” said McCoy. “I love the school, love the kids and love the fact that I can see people , who are former VC graduates, come and support the program. It means a lot.”
McCoy said there is not much difference between basketball in Abbeville and basketball in Atlanta. The biggest difference he has seen are the courts and the gyms. At Parkview in Atlanta, the gym and floors were larger, giving it a college feel, he said.
“Most of the gyms held three or four thousand, so it was a bigger stage, bigger crowd,” said McCoy. “But basketball is basketball. It is all relative with the kids that you have.”
In the win over Sacred Heart of Ville Platte, McCoy was wearing his 2003 state championship ring. He does not wear it every day. That night he wore it to show his players that hard work pays off.
“I was trying to get a point across to the players that this (state championship) is something that does not come easy. It has to be earned,” he said.
He would know.