Southern Vance’s Mike Rotolo is new VGCC Basketball coach

Mike Rotolo, the longtime boys’ basketball coach at Southern Vance High School, has been named the new head coach of the Vance-Granville Community College Vanguards men’s basketball team.

 

Rotolo (pictured above) will become the third head coach in the history of VGCC’s program, which is set to start its fifth season of play in the National Junior College Athletic Association this fall.

 

A native of Silver Spring, Maryland, Rotolo played college basketball for the Pembroke State (now UNC-Pembroke) Braves and graduated with a business administration degree in 1980. He then served as an assistant coach at his alma mater for two years. Rotolo moved to Henderson to take a position as head basketball coach at Vance Academy (later Kerr-Vance Academy). In 1990, he joined the newly established Southern Vance High School and has been the only boys’ basketball head coach the school has ever known. A certified teacher, Rotolo also taught health/physical education courses and served as a soccer, golf, tennis, cross country and baseball coach during his career at the two high schools. This summer, he was the East team head coach for the N.C. Coaches Association East-West All-Star boys’ basketball game. Meanwhile, he is completing a master’s degree in physical education from North Carolina Central University.

 

Rotolo said that “it’s been a great privilege to coach high school basketball, but I’ve always wanted to coach at the college level.” At VGCC, he found the perfect opportunity to make such a career move without leaving Henderson, where he lives with his wife, Lisa, and where they have raised their son, Chip, who is now a student at UNC-Chapel Hill. “I want to take on the challenge of building the basketball program here at Vance-Granville, like I previously built programs at Vance Academy and at Southern Vance,” Rotolo said. “I look forward to recruiting players and creating a system for Vanguards basketball.” The 2012-2013 season is scheduled to begin in late October.

 

For more information, visit the VGCC Athletics web site .