Indianapolis, IN – The four coaches in this year’s class have coached an astounding combined 194 years (48.5 average) and claimed a total of 43 state championships in volleyball, football, swimming, and baseball. These four remarkable individuals include Paula Kirkland, who won 1,088 volleyball matches at Dorman High School in Roebuck, South Carolina, and led her teams to 15 state championships in 43 years; Gary Rankin, the winningest high school football coach in Tennessee history during his 42-year career in which he has led teams to 17 state championships at four different schools; Roy Snyder, who started the swimming program at Wilson High School in West Lawn, Pennsylvania, in 1964 and has 611 victories and four state championships in an amazing 59 years; and Ronald Vincent, who won the 1,000th baseball game of his career last year at J. H. Rose High School in Greenville, North Carolina and has led his teams to seven state titles in 50 years.
Ronald Vincent | North Carolina
Now in his 51st season as the baseball coach at J. H. Rose High School in Greenville, North Carolina, Ronald Vincent has become one of the most successful coaches in the history of the sport. In April of 2023, Rose achieved a level few have ever reached when he won the 1,000th game of his storied career.
Beginning the 2023 season (his 50th at his alma mater) with a 985-292 record, Vincent claimed No. 1,000 on April 11, 2023, with a victory over Jacksonville to push his all-time mark to 1,000-295 in 54 years overall. Prior to accepting the position at his alma mater in 1973, Vincent was a baseball coach at Farmville (North Carolina) Central High School for four years.
Vincent is the all-time leader in baseball coaching victories in North Carolina and is in the top 10 nationally, and he has led his teams at Rose to seven North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) state championships. His first title came two years after he started in 1975, and the last was the 2021 championship in a shortened season due to the pandemic.
Vincent led Rose to state titles in 1997 with a 26-2 record and in 1999 with an unblemished 28-0 mark. He then won back-to-back championships in 2003 and 2004 with 26-2 and 28-5 records. Vincent’s other state title came in 2008 with a 28-3 final mark.
Baseball, however, is just the beginning of Vincent’s contributions to Rose High School over the past 50 years. He was an assistant football coach for more than 30 years and was a part of five state championships teams (1975, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006). He was a teacher at Rose from 1973 to 2009, served as the school’s athletic director for four years in the late 1990s, and has also coached basketball and wrestling at various times.
And it goes much deeper than that according to Clay Medlin, the school’s athletic director.
“Ronald Vincent . . . is much more than a coach. He’s a leader in the community. He’s a Boy Scout advisor, he’s a member of the boards of directors for multiple youth organizations, and he’s a staple at J. H. Rose High School,” Medlin said. “He’s found at school almost every day doing whatever it is that needs to be done – painting the football and soccer fields in the morning while cutting the grass in the afternoon. He also is keeping the clock for basketball games in the winter, and helping the lacrosse and softball coaches fix their fields in the spring.”
Vincent was inducted into the North Carolina Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2010 and the NCHSAA Hall of Fame in 2014. During the NCHSAA’s Centennial Celebration in 2013, Vincent was selected as one of the “100 Coaches to Remember.” He was the Mid-Atlantic Baseball Coach of the Year in 1999 and the NFHS Section 3 Coach of the Year in 2013.
In 2003, Vincent was awarded the NC Order of the Long Leaf Pine, which is North Carolina’s highest civilian honor, and in 2004, the fieldhouse at J. H. Rose High School was named in his honor.
Click here to read more about the NFHS Hall of Fame Class of 2024.
