Mario Mincey, the girl's basketball coach at Bryan County High School, considers himself a lucky man.
Not just because he has built a powerful program in Pembroke, as coaches can relate, Mincey has very fortunate timing when it comes to the biggest moments in his family's life. They didn't interrupt basketball season.
PHOTO: Mario Mincey - Bryan County High School Social Media page
"It's crazy how both my daughters were born during football season," Mincey said of September baby Layla, now a ninth-grader, and October birth month London, now a fifth-grader. "It is crazy, man. It's nuts."
Mincey married his wife, Alexis, 18 years ago, in September. It was scheduled in advance of him beginning his new job at Bryan County, where he was an assistant football coach that fall before moving over to hoops.
The wedding date happened to fall on the football team's open week.
That was a good sign for things to come for the Redskins, who should feel lucky to have Mincey, 47, in his 18th year at the school. While he also has coached track and field, continues to help the football program and is assistant girls and boys tennis coach, the girls basketball team is his baby.
This 18th season -- already a milestone with his 300th career victory on Nov. 23 in a 56-31 win at South Effingham -- is when his first baby, Layla, joined the team.
"I call him Coach," said Layla Mincey, 15, who has been playing basketball since first grade. But this is the first time her father, who attended her games and helped her, is her actual coach.
He's still "Dad" away from the court, but when they're together as a team, it's coach and player, just like every other player.
"It's going good," said Layla, a 5-foot-9 freshman forward on both the varsity and junior varsity rosters. "He's tough on me sometimes, but you've got to make it fair for everybody. I just do what I can."
Of course, she knew what to expect from Coach Mincey, whose teams play hard and fast and apply pressure defense. He tries to make all of his players fit into the system but treats them individually.
"It's not just about one person. It's about everybody," Layla said. "He's not very calm unless we actually do this (what he's coached). We have to play hard the whole game. Not just the first half. Not just the first quarter. We have to play hard the whole game. That's just his style."
The Redskins’ style is working quite well. They are 4-0 this early season and ranked No. 4 on Dec. 2 in Kyle Sandy's state rankings for Class A Division II after starting the preseason at No. 9 at sandysspiel.com.
Standout players include 5-8 senior forward Ashanti Brown, who is averaging 16.5 points over four games, and 5-3 junior guard Jasmine Mikell (13.5).
Bryan County is coming off one of its best seasons, going 26-4 and reaching the GHSA state quarterfinals for the second time in Mincey's career. (The other was the 2016-17 season.)
The Redskins, who also won 26 games in 2018-19, captured 21 or more victories each season from 2016-17 to 2023-24, according to MaxPreps, with the exception of 2020-21, the COVID pandemic season when some key players were unavailable, and the schedule was limited.
Rough start
Success didn't come right away, at least not the first season, when Mincey said the team went 1-22.
"It was a young team I took over that first year," recalled Mincey, who followed a Bryan County legend in Johnnie Miller, who had 613 career victories. "We made the state playoffs our third year, and it's been rolling since then."
Mincey played football and basketball at Claxton High, where he graduated in 1995. His father, Norris, was a longtime recreation and assistant football coach at Claxton who also was a star defensive back at his alma mater.
Mario Mincey said he wasn't set from the start on becoming a coach "but it kind of runs in the family."
His younger brother, Tevin, also has coached, and his uncle, Tony Welch, is the head football coach and athletics director at Jenkins High in Savannah.
Mario Mincey graduated from Georgia Southern, where he studied community health and physical education. He was a lay coach at Claxton; an assistant girls and boys basketball coach at William James Middle School in Statesboro; and held the same posts at Jenkins County High.
He heard about a teaching opening at Bryan County that included being an assistant football coach and also track and field duties. Then girls basketball was added to the offer and his first shot at being in charge of his own program.
"The opportunity to be a head coach and try to rebuild a program, I was like, 'Why not?'" Mincey recalled. "I knew it was going to be a challenge."
He had strong influences from his family as well as "legendary coaches" that he knew through being around the games, such as former Statesboro High boys hoops coach Lee Hill, Vidalia girls coach Charles Reid and Jenkins County's James Ford.
"Seeing other people and being around them through my dad, and my actual battles with some legendary coaches has helped mold me," said Mincey, who teaches physical education.
"I knew that my team, I was always going to have a disciplined team that was also was going to do it right on the court and off the court," he said. "That was my biggest thing. I kind of stuck to that because my dad believed in that, and some of the other coaches that I looked up to, that's kind of their philosophy. It's kind of worked that way."
Taking the next step
It all starts with an emphasis on academics and the overall development of the person, not just the athlete. Mincey puts in extra effort to improve his players' opportunities for college, such as sending out video to coaches. He hosts the annual Bryan County Summer Jam, a showcase for 20-plus teams playing more than 50 games, attracting college coaches in person and over streaming.
"That's the main goal. That's really why I enjoy it so much. It's an opportunity. It's a small school at Bryan," he said. "In this area alone, there's a lot of talent that gets overlooked because you're not in the Atlanta area. There have been kids in the 912 area (code), but some kids can't afford to play in high-level AAU situations. As a coach, I always looked at it as there are several schools out there that could provide financial aid or help kids get a chance to play. That's our main thing."
Many of his players have gone on to college basketball, including BCHS great Olonna Rawls (Class of 2020), now a graduate student playing guard at Columbus State, where she was All-Peach Belt Conference the past two seasons.
Olivia Melton was a two-time honorable mention All-American (NAIA, WBCA) at College of Coastal Georgia, where she played from 2011-15 and holds many team records, including career points (1,431), assists (286) and steals (232). Melton is in her third season as assistant coach at South Georgia Tech.
Mincey said 19 girls came out for the team this year and they play for either the varsity or JV -- no cuts.
"If a kid's willing to work. I really don't do cuts like that," he said. "We try to work with kids. We have kids now that are seniors. If I'd have tried to cut them as ninth-graders, they probably wouldn't still be around. I'm big on developing kids. If they're willing to learn, trying to learn the game, I'm just big on developing."
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtsey Bryan County High School Social medai and Coach Mincey
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