Eddie Gray, boys basketball coach at Garner High School, has been named as the 2015 Male Coach of the Year by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association.
Gray, who has been involved with Garner High’s athletics program since 1977, led the team to the NCHSAA 4-A state championship earlier in the year. It was the first time the school had won a state championship in basketball.
“It’s kind of one of those things – you don’t want it to end,” Gray told WRAL television station about the season.
Gray, himself a 1970 graduate of Garner High School, had led teams to 14 conference titles and had gone to state playoffs 20 times before this year’s championship run.
“We’ve always had a great school, and a great program, and a great group of young people to work with, but the championship validated all of that,” he told WRAL. “We knew it and now a lot of other people in the state know it.”
A story about Gray being honored as Coach of the Year is here.