Bright Future: Travis Mikel anxious to apply his vision to rejuvenate Albany High
by: William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Four weeks after being given the program’s interim head coaching title going into the seventh week of the regular season, Travis Mikel proceeded as normal.
The Hornets defeated arch-rival Springfield (38-28) before winding up the season with a three-game losing streak when Mikel, who replaced John Legoria on Oct. 15, addressed the anticipated members who would return for the 2025 season.
Mikel said players would have the upcoming week off to recover from the rigors of a 3-7 season that didn’t produce a trip to the postseason.
After the week was over, he said, essentially the ’25 season would start with the team’s offseason lifting program getting underway with Mikel giving everyone a healthy piece of advice.
“You can buy in right now and do better now and the kids have done a good job of accepting that thought process,” Mikel said. “Ever since it (Legoria’s in-season resignation) happened, I just did me. I feel like I’ve got a pretty good pulse on the kids. We had those end-of-the-year meetings and talked about where to get better. We handled business just like we would have regardless of the title.”
Albany made its stance official this week, hiring Mikel to become the school’s full-time head coach where the team’s remained steadfast in its offseason program that will resume after the holidays.
“It’s definitely exciting for me to be back in the saddle,” Mikel said. “To run the show and make all the hard decisions people want to fire you over. It’s especially exciting at a school like Albany because there’s so much community involvement and the community’s really starving for championship-level football.
“I think they’re ready to make that commitment to that,” Mikel said. “There’s a different financial commitment, there’s a different helping-type commitment that comes from being a program and being a championship-level program. I think our community’s ready for that, so it’s really exciting to be here.”
This isn’t Mikel’s first head coach job, having spent a year at Independence in 2023.
This stop, though, has the makings of long-term roots being planted.
Mikel was steadfast in seeking a terrific education for his children which he thinks the Albany school system in Livingston Parish already provides.
Although he lives in Hammond, where he coached for more than a decade at Southeastern Louisiana, schools in Albany are three miles from his residence and the home of his wife, Rainey, and her parents.
“After the birth of my second child, I decided I wanted to raise both of my kids in a town that my wife was from and they had grandparents there,” Mikel said of the decision to leave SLU in part because of the health of mother in Florida. “It was a family decision. I didn’t want another person raising my kids.”
Mikel gave the business sector 18 months with a job in parks and recreation, but it wasn’t enough to quench his thirst for being around athletics.
He jumped back into education and coaching at Ponchatoula Junior High School for two years before moving to Ponchatoula High School to join the staff of head coach Trey Willie.
“It was a no-brainer because the goal was to become a high school coach/teacher or in the educational system,” he said. “I just wanted to be a high school coach.
After staying at Independence for a little over a year, Mikel received a call from Albany principal Sammie Lacara and Legoria about joining the Hornets’ coaching staff, which he did.
“It came down to the kids’ education,” he said. “I kind of knew John was nearing his (coaching) end. My wife’s from Hammond and most of her family had gone to Albany. The system is phenomenal. It’s a top-notch education.”
Mikel’s association with Legoria lasted three months when he opted to step down from his heading coaching position, resulting in the elevation of Mikel to the team’s acting head coach for the remainder of the season.
The victory over Springfield in the annual ‘Battle of I-12’ grudge match turned out to be a highlight followed by difficult results in District 8-3A losses to Amite, Jewel Sumner, and Bogalusa.
“It was tough, but John Legoria was an amazing person,” Mikel said. “There were very few people that I would have actually gone to work for, and he was one of them. It sucks the way that it unfolded. The Lord does things for a reason.”
Changing his life’s path
Mikel was an outstanding offensive lineman at Choctawhatchee High in Ft. Walton Beach, Fla. with designs on a college career at Georgia Southern where he committed as a junior.
Georgian Southern’s triple-option offense was a perfect fit for Mikel whose high school ran a carbon copy of the inside/outside veer offense.
Because a friend had signed with Georgia Southern the year before, Mikel had his heart set on signing there when a recruiting ripple effect changed the course of his life.
Instead of signing with the Statesboro, Ga. school, Mikel found himself without a home two days before signing day when they dropped his scholarship to sign another lineman that was dropped by Florida State.
“I felt at home,” he said. “It was a great place to be.”
Until it wasn’t.
The best friend of Choctawhatchee head coach Bobby Moore – Joel Williams – was the offensive line/offensive coordinator at Division II Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss.
“I think my head coach called him and said I was available,” Mikel said. “I can’t prove that, but that’s what I felt.”
Mikel’s assistant pastor, Moore, and both of his parents followed Mikel to Delta State when it was time to report for fall camp. He went there as a walk-on and repeatedly looked for reasons to return home.
Because of a high ACT score, Mikel had his out-of-state tuition covered by Delta State’s alumni house, and he eventually was given a $2,000 stipend by the program, but still lacked a full scholarship until his senior year.
“The night I was supposed to report for fall camp, I had convinced myself I wasn’t going,” he said. “It’s seven hours away, somewhere completely different. I got to Cleveland with a caravan that made sure I got there.”
During his high school’s state playoff game, and with Mikel in attendance, the school’s linebackers coach Ron Reese framed a question to Mikel’s liking.
“I left every chance I could my first semester there,” he said. “Finally, Coach Reese looked at me and said, ‘Travis, I just want to let you know, if you stay in Mississippi, the beer tends to be colder and free, and the girls will actually give you some (beer).’ I looked at him and thought that sounded kind of good. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. It kind of set the trajectory of my life.”
Mikel began to develop an affinity for Delta State and the Cleveland area.
“I quit coming home,” he said. “I fell in love with the place. Cleveland’s like a diamond in the rough. If you embrace the community, really dive into it, they treat you like part of their family. I was there for 10 years, and it became a really great 10 years.”
It didn’t hurt that his career was booming with All-Gulf South Conference second-team honors at center. He was named honorable mention All-American in his final season where he had been placed on scholarship when defensive coordinator Ron Roberts became the school’s head coach.
That relationship spawned a 10-year association with Roberts whom Mikel spent two years as a graduate assistant with Delta State before joining him at SLU during a magical time for the Lions’ program.
SLU won a pair of Southland Conference titles between 2012-17 and were 42-29 during Roberts’ tenure which led to a direct path to the Division I level where he was the defensive coordinator at UL-Lafayette, Baylor, Auburn and currently with Florida.
“I went through college and watched the way coach Roberts operated,” Mikel said. “In my opinion, there’s no one better in the game than coach Roberts and that’s any level. The family has had a huge impact on me.
“He was the first guy when this broke (getting Albany head coaching position) to call and text,” he said. “He said congratulations and to keep doing what you’re doing. To see the impact he and his wife had on kids is what drove me to want to do this. It’s his system with my spin on it.”
‘Born to be a head coach’
One of Mikel’s first orders of business is to grow his program’s roster numbers.
He said a typical senior class fluctuates from 10-12 players instead of the preferred 18-22-player range for a program competing in the Division II non-select bracket which is a mix of Class 4A and 3A schools.
“That’s not good,” he said of the size of the typical senior class at the school. “We are competing against teams that have 80 players and 12 coaches. That’s part of the long-term vision. We’ve got to get to that number up.”
Defensive coordinator Trey Bennett will continue running Albany’s defense while Mikel’s search for an offensive coordinator continues.
“We have some changes to make in January,” Mikel said of Albany’s offensive scheme. “We want to be multiple. We want to run the ball. We want to take deep shots down the field, be creative. We want to stretch it horizontally and vertically. We want to play with big packages, play with speed. We want to do what I’ve been around.”
The same guy, who because of his background, had drumlines showing up to play at his birthday parties because of his family’s background in education, has a vision of success for his new program.
“It’s all I’ve ever known,” Mikel said of coaching. “Bobby Moore was a huge influence on my life and seeing the decisions he made from the big chair was always intriguing. The future is bright here.”
His wife Rainey gives Mikal a fighting chance with his players, supplying the Sunday post-practice feast of brownies and Rice Crispy treats.
“I think I have the perfect head coach’s wife, she’s all in,” Mikel said.
Little did he realize that more than 1 ½ months ago did Mikel expect such a responsibility shift, but it’s one he’s prepared for and wants to deliver a winning product everyone in town will be proud of.
Just this week two planned events took place – before Mikel was named head coach – with Albany’s players assisting students at the lower elementary with carpool. That was followed Thursday by a team function at the boys’ basketball game.
When Lacara attached the interim head coach’s tag to Mikel’s job description, he implored his coach to be himself and when the job would be advertised after the season, he would be a candidate they wanted to interview.
“In his words,” Mikel said, “you were born to be a head coach.”
Featured Image Courtesy: Albany Hornets Football