A new face will be leading the Trojans as they take to the football field this fall as Kevin Gandy was named as Northeast Lauderdale football’s new head coach on Monday.
Gandy said he is looking to build the Northeast team into a serious contender in the region.
“What I want to bring here to Northeast, to Trojan nation, I want to bring a sense of camaraderie first of all,” he said. “I want to bring a sense of toughness to the program.”
Coaching, however, doesn’t end at the locker rooms, and Gandy said he also wants to use his position to help students grow into productive citizens. Attitude and effort carry over into the classroom and into the community, he said, and those wearing Trojan colors must be good representatives of their school.
“What I instill in you as a young man, you need to carry that out into the community,” he said.
A 2002 graduate of Wayne County High School, Gandy attended Alcorn State University and began coaching in 2007 as a defensive coordinator for his Wayne County team. Under his leadership, the team played for the state championship in 2009 and won state in 2015.
In 2017, Gandy made the switch to offensive coordinator for Wayne County before being named head football coach in 2021. He then moved to Meridian High School where he served as assistant head coach and offensive coordinator for the Wildcats.
Joshua Herrington, principal at Northeast High School, said Gandy came highly recommended by former coworkers and acquaintances at Meridian High School, and after hearing from him during the interview process, the search committee voted unanimously to name him head coach.
“We’re super excited about you, what you have to bring, your relationship with kids and knowledges you’ve got, the consistency and longevity that you had at Wayne County and at Meridian High. We’re excited to see you here at Trojan nation,” he said.
Northeast Athletic Director Lewis Lightsey said the search committee for the head football coach position had a great pool of applicants and chose Gandy because they believe he is the best person to lead the Trojans moving forward.
“We had a great committee. We had a great group of people that we interviewed,” he said. “And the guy that we felt like that was our best guy to lead us forward as our new coach, and that’s board pending, it has to be approved by the (Lauderdale County School District Board of Trustees), we’re just going to make sure we get that out there, but our new head coach is Kevin Gandy.”
Gandy said he has had the opportunity to learn from some of the best over his 18-year coaching career, and he looks forward to putting those lessons to work shaping the Trojans into a force to be reckoned with.
“I can’t explain the excitement that I feel right now,” he said. “But I know this is where I need to be, and I can’t wait until Friday night.”