Piece of History: Mickey McCarty’s name added to Neville High field
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Neville High had gone through two coaches in two years when the Tigers were headed to Springhill for their spring football game.
Before boarding the bus, head coach Billy Dawson asked offensive coordinator Mickey McCarty to step outside of the team’s locker room to share some news.
Dawson was about to add to the school’s unprecedented stretch of instability, becoming the third head coach not to coach after one season, realizing a dream to coach at the collegiate level as offensive coordinator at Arkansas Tech.
He informed McCarty, a seven-year assistant at Neville who also spent a year as an assistant at Bastrop, of his intentions and asked whether the 33-year-old would be interested in taking over the tradition-rich program where the names of Bill Ruple and Charlie Brown still loomed large.
Neville hadn’t won a state championship since 1995 when McCarty, a graduate of Ouachita High, embraced the opportunity to coach the Monroe powerhouse which had previously won eight state titles under Ruple, Brown and Joe Coats.
“He said he was going to resign on Monday morning and he would recommend me to become the next head coach,” McCarty recalled of Dawson’s plan. “I went with them and met with (principal) Brent Vidrine. He (Dawson) walked out of the office, and I walked in, and the principal basically said, ‘Coach, do you want to be the next head coach?’ I said, yes, sir. I do. He said, ‘Congratulations, let’s get it going.’”
McCarty was aware of Neville’s allure. The son of two Ouachita High graduates had watched the Neville-Ouachita rivalry from afar and saw Brown as a larger-than-life figure that left quite an impression.
The rise of Neville’s program captivated everyone in the city, and McCarty grew to admire what such giants as Ruple and Brown had accomplished.
“I always thought Neville was a little unique in a lot of ways,” McCarty said. “I didn’t know how or why from the outside looking in. Once you go to work there, and breathe the black and gold way of life, you easily become indoctrinated into that Neville pride.
“I was very well versed on the tradition and excellence at Neville and the expectations,” McCarty said. “I knew when I had the opportunity to coach at Neville, I knew the history that was there.”
Four consecutive trips to the state semifinals, including three painstaking defeats to John Curtis, were clear examples of McCarty’s ability to restore the program’s excellence. The Tigers broke through in 2009 under McCarty with the first of four state championships, a precursor to the level of superiority they would enjoy during his 18-year tenure.
When it appeared nearly impossible for another football coach at Neville to approach the levels Ruple and Brown reached, McCarty will be remembered among the school’s more prominent figures.
The Monroe City School Board recently announced this fall that Neville’s football stadium – previously known as Bill Ruple Stadium – will have company and will be formally known as Bill Ruple Stadium at Mickey McCarty Field.
The school dedicated its fieldhouse to Charlie Brown in 2011.
“He deserves to be on the Mount Rushmore with the other Neville greats,” said former Neville great wide receiver John Diarse, who finished his college career at TCU. “I wouldn’t be who I am without him. You have to honor someone like that and put him up there. He belongs in that conversation for what he did in the time that he had.”
McCarty’s exceeded the three-decade mark at Neville last school year with his sixth year as the school’s principal.
The former Northeast Louisiana (now UL-Monroe) baseball player recalled wanting to coach at his alma mater. When openings were scarce or nonexistent, he joined the staff of Rick Hudson at Bastrop.
He attributed his interest in coaching to Mike Vallery, a former 10-year assistant to Brown, who was his head coach during his senior season. His baseball coach, Gary Richter, was another key influence.
“Coach Vallery brought the Neville system, a lot of the Neville way,” McCarty said. “He was a younger version of coach Brown. I fell in love with coach Vallery. I’d never played for anybody quite like him. I loved the way he treated us as players and drove us. He was a good teacher in all of the things you like out of your coach.”
Neville assistant Greg McGough, a friend and former college baseball teammate of McCarty’s, called to gauge his interest in an opening on the Tigers’ staff.
McCarty was hired to serve on Coats’ staff.
“I pulled for my school all but one game of the season, which was fun,” McCarty said of Ouachita.
McCarty worked his way up, coaching Neville’s freshman team for several years until Coates elevated him to the varsity staff. He later served on the staffs of both Martin and Dawson, eventually serving as offensive coordinator until Dawson’s departure.
In the spring of 2002, McCarty was named the school’s head coach.
“The program needed some stability after going through some coaches,” McCarty said. “I didn’t have any head coaching experience, and Brent Vidrine kind of took a shot, gave me a chance and gave me an opportunity for which I’m forever grateful for.
“I was among a good staff already and knew I had a good group coming back on that team from the senior group,” McCarty said. “There were a lot of good things in place. I had to take the reins and not screw it up too much. We didn’t know a lot but to go to work. There was no magic key given to me. It was to try and uphold the excellence and tradition of the program. We just went to work, tried to make it happen our way.”
McCarty remained loyal to Neville’s past under Ruple and Brown, utilizing a bruising Wing-T offense and stifling defense.
McCarty was also on the cutting edge offensively. He used some of the split-back veer introduced by Coats and showed his aptitude to adjust to a spread system he picked up under Martin and Dawson.
“I didn’t know if I’d get the opportunity at Neville or not, but if I did get the opportunity at Neville, I’d already made up my mind that I had to be true to myself,” McCarty said. “I couldn’t be Bill Ruple, Charlie Brown or Joe Coats. They had their own unique personalities and backgrounds in coaching. I had to take their way from a scheme perspective, what we had been doing offensively and defensively.”
McCarty said Neville went full-throttle spread in 2008, and with the arrival of Diarse, a freshman wide receiver the following season, the Tigers were back atop the mountain.
“When we sold out to that, that was probably the best move I made,” he said. “The Neville way was to work hard and try and do things right. To try and develop young men in your program, build strength and speed in them in the offseason. We had a group of coaches that were on the same page, putting egos aside and working well together.”
Diarse paid homage to Neville’s teams from 2005 through 2008 – winners of 36 games with appearances in a semifinal and quarterfinal – for laying the groundwork for the ’09 team.
“Those guys were even more talented than we were in 2009 and 2011,” said Diarse, who praised offensive coordinator Brett Lemoine and wide receivers coach Terry Levine for their belief to start him as a freshman. “They had legitimate men playing offensive line with great running backs. Those classes kind of set it up for us. They really did.”
Neville’s dynasty of 12 state championships began under Ruple in 1955.
What took place was an improbable stretch of winning state championships in six consecutive decades, with Ruple winning another in 1959, 1961 and 1962. Brown, a Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame selection in 2011, won titles in 1972 and went back-to-back in 1983 and ’84, and Coats followed in ’95.
Four straight trips to the state semifinals only added to a burden that was finally lifted off McCarty’s shoulders in ’09, extending the school’s streak of winning state championships in six straight decades. It also ended a drought of 14 years without a title.
“It is pressure, there’s no other way to look at that,” McCarty said. “It’s privilege pressure. There were some programs that didn’t have that privilege at the time. It took us seven years to win a state title. We knocked on the door a few times, lost to Curtis three times. One of the things we were very prideful at Neville was the decades-long streak of winning a championship dating back to the 50s.”
Neville was in the midst of another glorious run over a 12-year span with three state titles under Brown, who also led the Tigers to a pair of state runner-up finishes in 1991 and ’92, the latter of which was his final season.
Between 2009-19, McCarty guided Neville to four state championships and a pair of state runner-up finishes. The Tigers also put together the LHSAA’s seventh-longest winning streak of 39 games between 2014-16, dropping the second game of the season to Longview, Texas, and not dropping another game until the state final against Karr in ’16.
John Curtis has a state-best 26 titles followed by Haynesville (18), Evangel Christian (14) and Neville.
“You feel that as a player, that’s the expectation,” Diarse said going into the ’09 season. “Coach McCarty had a vision that held us accountable, created structure, and kept the discipline and consistency the same, year in and year out. It wasn’t a surprise to the success that we had.
“We had a great combination of players; we had some really good high school players,” Diarse said. “We could always run. We wanted to dive into the passing game a little more. We had a great combination of a lot of different skills. It was a combination of the entire staff, guys who knew football and understood the chess moves.”
Neville’s second state title under McCarty was poignant after Brown’s death earlier that spring of ’11.
The Tigers’ dominance continued with consecutive state crowns in 2014 and ’15, the latter of which capped a 14-0 record, marking the school’s sixth perfect season and second under McCarty.
Neville was 107-14 over McCarty’s final six years, including a state runner-up showing in ’16 to go with trips to the quarterfinals and two semifinals.
His final game, a 40-21 semifinal loss at home to Edna Karr in ’19, closed out a 10-3 season, the 14th time McCarty’s teams won double-digit games and eight in his last nine seasons. It was also the 11th straight appearance in either a quarterfinal or semifinal, with the Tigers making a total of 13 trips to the semifinal round under McCarty.
“I’ve spoken on how powerful a position we’re in as coaches to do what we do and celebrate the way we can celebrate the victories,” McCarty said. “The losses hurt tremendously. I don’t know of another profession that correlates to the ebb like coaches go throughout a season.”
The hierarchy of Neville football coaches reads: Ruple 149-18, four state titles (1942-62); Brown 262-66-5, three state titles (1963-92) and McCarty 197-43, four state titles and two state runners-up (2002-19).
McCarty, a two-time LSWA Coach of the Year in 2011 and ’14, helped produce 51 first-team LSWA All-State selections and five MVPs on either offense or defense.
“Neville has great community support,” McCarty said. “There are great spirit groups, student body, faculty and administration. All of the things were in place to have success. We had a great run with some really good kids and athletes and had some outstanding coaches with us. Lady Luck shined on us a couple of times, winning a couple of games that maybe we shouldn’t have. We went on a great run. It was a lot of fun.”
McCarty completed coursework to become an administrator, and Neville had an opening following the retirement of principal Dr. Christella Dawson.
“I didn’t plan on going into it that quickly, but opportunity knocked,” he said. “The principal that was retiring had considered retiring before and had pushed me to consider being a principal. I put her off for a couple of years. After the 2019 season, I began to start looking outside of coaching. A lot of prayer and thought went into that. It was not an easy decision.”
McCarty was asked by prominent local radio and television broadcaster Aaron Dietrich to reflect on a coaching career that left him three wins shy of Louisiana’s magical 200-win club.
Without hesitation, perhaps a sign of his self-deprecating humor, McCarty took himself to task.
“If I was any better coach, we would have won three more games that we played in and coached,” he said.
McCarty’s words resonated with Diarse.
“That’s him,” he said. “It was golden. That’s a perfect Mickey McCarty answer. A lot of what I do today is because of him.”
McCarty was back in a similar situation he faced in 2002. He proved that despite having never previously been a head coach, he was more than capable of building teams and imparting his philosophy and leadership into a winning product.
He had never been a principal or administrator when he took the job of Neville, where immediately he was tasked with leading a school during a worldwide pandemic.
“I had always been on a team going back to when I was a kid,” McCarty said. “I took what I knew from sports into administration. Once I got peace over the decision I made, I never looked back.”
His favorite catchphrase, ‘Win Today’, transitioned into his role in administration, serving as a daily reminder of trying to achieve the best result possible regardless of the challenge.
“I looked for ways to compete and win at things,” he said. “Educators plant seeds all of the time. You try to develop that winning edge in kids. Nothing replaced my experience with that competitive nature and edge.
“A football staff and team prepare for Fridays,” he said. “You work all week, do your homework, put in the work, and you go under the lights, and you compete. When you’re successful at that, especially at a high level and you win those semifinal games and can accomplish a championship, nothing that I’ve experienced has topped that elation and experience.”
The world eventually moved past the COVID-19 pandemic, and so did Neville after adhering to such guidelines as wearing masks, temperature checks and distancing its students up to six feet.
McCarty passed his first test as the school’s leader in part because of previous experience in football.
“I knew how to manage things,” he said. “I knew how to manage situations, crowds and adversity. That experience played in my favor. It was a difficult time for people across the world.”
Neville, a school with an enrollment that ranged between 950 and 1,050 students, was an example of the Louisiana State Department of Education’s model of success.
They’ve been atop the grading scale with an A average during McCarty’s tenure.
“You’re winning when you’ve maintained an A rating, and fortunately, we were able to do that,” McCarty said. “It’s become harder and harder to do because of the way the grading has turned. I’m a people person. I like to pour into people, particularly kids at the high school level.
“We were seed planters, no matter what we were doing as coaches, teachers, and in the cafeteria cleaning up after everybody left,” McCarty said. “We’re servants, and we’re pouring into these kids. We have kids going to college, going to work. I’ve seen kids come through our school, young people that have started families and successful careers. That’s where I feel like we’ve been most successful. That’s my grading stick.”
McCarty’s spot on Friday nights changed from the sideline to the stands. He’s preferred to remain out of the spotlight that comes with being Neville’s head coach, a glare that followed his successors Jeff Tannehill and Mike Collins the past six seasons.
McCarty hasn’t gravitated too far, though, lending his expertise as an analyst in the live streaming of football games in 2025 with hosts Robert Lane and Stewart Shelby.
“When I stepped away, I stepped away,” he said. “I didn’t want to have my nose in it, but I was always there to support. I go to the games on Fridays, and I still plan to do that.”
With one of his former pupils, Diarse, taking his first team to the state playoffs, McCarty was in attendance last fall when Wossman opened Division II non-select postseason play at Minden.
Diarse, who was part of two of McCarty’s state championship teams in ’09 and ’11, was one of the five players under McCarty to earn state MVP honors. He was also Louisiana’s Mr. Football in 2012 and signed with LSU, where he played for three seasons before transferring to TCU for two seasons.
Diarse was an undrafted free agent who signed with the Denver Broncos and later played with the San Antonio Commanders in the Alliance of American Football.
Wossman defeated Minden, 35-14, to advance to the state regionals against Plaquemine.
“As a head coach, he comes to visit me,” said Diarse, who was 5-7 in his first season. “We sit and talk; he asks questions. He may mention something he thinks that can help me that I may not have seen in a game. He told me he was proud and congratulated me after the Minden game, told me he was proud and gave me some hand-written notes. He loves people and people love him.”
McCarty became the second principal in his family, a pathway to administration aided by his wife Toni. She served in the top spot at Lexington Elementary for 11 years before his wife of 31 years took over in a supervisory role for Monroe City Elementary Schools.
“She was hands down the better principal,” McCarty said. “She really was an outstanding principal, very well respected. I witnessed that first-hand. I called her several times during my stay to ask questions. She was outstanding and a very hard worker.”
Diarse said discussions of McCarty’s name being added to Neville’s stadium had been in the works for several months. Whenever their paths crossed, Diarse did his best not to divulge any information about the potential historic decision.
The only regret is that Wossman will be playing on a Friday night when Neville unveils McCarty’s name on its field.
“I wish I could be there,” he said. “He deserves it. He earned it, and he did it the right way. If you’re going to have a coach to lead a program, and win state championships like he did, he did it the right way. He’s been very influential in my life since my freshman year.”
McCarty, the Vice President of business development for Origin Bank, was on his way home from a function for the bank that evening when his wife called after the Monroe City School Board meeting in which she was in attendance.
Instead of a potential pay raise for teachers, which McCarty believed was the source of his wife’s call, he learned the board had passed a motion to make Bill Ruple Stadium at Mickey McCarty Field a reality.
“I had absolutely no idea,” McCarty said. “When she said they were naming the field after me, I did not see that coming. It’s taken time to absorb.
“It’s still sinking in,” he said. “I feel tremendously honored to be considered for the naming of a field. There’s a lot of history at Neville High School and the football program, and to be considered among those great coaches is certainly honoring and humbling.”