UNION CITY – The Mississinawa Valley Boys Basketball program will return a veteran coach to the bench for the 2024-25 basketball season. His name is Jeff Vaughn, and he coached the Blackhawks back in 2005-2009.
Vaughn has been married to wife, Shelly for 29 years and has three grown children Tori, Trevor and Allison.
He is a graduate of Ft. Recovery HS and Bowling Green State University and works as a program manager for an alternative education program in Darke and Miami Counties called ACES.
“I have a passion to help people succeed and seeing people grow personally,” Vaughn said regarding his vocation. That also flows over into his love for coaching. “I have been coaching for 30 years and love teaching the game of basketball,” Vaughn added.
After leaving Mississinawa Valley he spent 5 seasons as a varsity boys assistant, 6 seasons as varsity girls assistant, 3 seasons as junior varsity girls coach and 1 season as freshman boys coach at his alma mater, Ft. Recovery High School.
Vaughn is pleased to be back at Mississinawa Valley and reflected on his previous tenure.
“One of the biggest highlights for me was having a winning season in 2006-07. It was the first winning season in quite some time. Another highlight was being “Coach of the Year” in the CCC that season as well. This meant a lot especially when it was voted on by the opposing coaches in the conference and there were many teams that had better records,” Vaughn stated.
Vaughn is excited to be back.
“It feels great to be back at MV, I never regretted my time here and I feel like I have some unfinished business and look forward to the challenge. It also feels great to have 3 former MV players on our coaching staff,” Vaugh added.
Vaughn’s expectation as a coach is to be a role model for these young men.
“I want to push and prepare them to be the best they can and be here for a long period of time and provide some stability for the players and Mississinawa Valley Basketball program. We want to create a culture that these players are proud of, and others want to be a part of. We expect our teams to compete,” Vaughn explained.
What kind of basketball can we expect to see from a Coach Vaughn team?
“We expect to play a style of basketball that is best suited for our players. We want to be a team that is gritty, never quits and competes every night. We would really like to play up tempo and utilize our athleticism. We have really been emphasizing playing as a team and trusting our teammates,” Vaughn said.
“We would like to get out and push the ball as long as we can limit our turnovers. We plan to run a lot of motion offense, and defensively primarily play man while mixing in some full court pressure,” Vaughn added.
Now that you have had some open gyms, hopefully been to a few shootouts and scrimmages, what kind of numbers do you have? What are some things you like about what you have seen so far with the team?
“It has been a great summer, and the players are buying into what we want to do as a program and working extremely hard. MV is going to be a young team. We have 19 players and 15 of them are freshman and sophomores so there are going to be growing pains along the way. This summer has me really excited, it is amazing how far we have come from day one to now. We played at the Versailles Shootout, Randolph Southern Shootout and scrimmaged Anderson Prep and we have competed and held our own. The first step is to compete, and we feel good about where we are and have some really good young talent as long as they keep working and getting better.
Under the guidance and experience of Jeff Vaughn along with young talent eager to learn should be a good formula to ensure a bright future for Mississinawa Valley Basketball!
Good luck to Coach Vaughn and the Mississinawa Valley Boys Basketball team.
