For more than 30 years, Rick Comegy has crafted a career filled with successful student-athletes and championship-winning teams. Last season, his second year at Jackson State, he added a Southwestern Athletic Conference championship to his prolific resume'.

Now entering his third season, Comegy looks to build on his stellar reputation and lead JSU to consecutive league titles. In two seasons, he has resurrected the JSU program, winning 64 percent of his games (14-9) and producing back-to-back winning seasons. In 2006, his inaugural season, he opened with a 44-20 victory over Paul Quinn and went on to post a 6-4 overall record. In 2007, he led the Tigers to its 16th SWAC Championship with a 42-31 victory over Grambling State. He was named the SWAC Coach of the Year, Coach of the Year by the Pig Skin Club of Washington, D.C., and Coach of the Year by the 100% Wrong Club. City of Jackson councilman Kenneth I. Stokes named him "Man of the Year" at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Awards Dinner.

Comegy comes to JSU after serving as head football coach for the Tuskegee University Golden Lions where he complied a 90-26 overall record in a ten-year span. He captured four Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship titles (1998-2001, and 2004) and three-of-five bowl games from 1998 to 2004. In 2001, the Golden Tigers led the SIAC in both scoring offensively and defensively. In 2000, he finished the season with a perfect 12-0 record and went on to win the National Black College Football Championship.

Comegy's coaching career began as a defensive back coach at Millersville University in 1975. After a three-year stint with Millersvilles as the defensive and receiver coach, he joined the coaching staff at Colgate University as the defensive coach and assistant track coach.

In his seven years at Colgate, he would hold the title as head baseball coach for four years as well as the defensive coach and quarterback and receiver coach. After serving as defensive line/coordinator at Central State University from 1985-1993 he left for the head coaching position at Cheyney State. After two years, he returned to Central State as head coach and led the team to consecutive NAIA appearances and one championship in 1995. In two years as head coach, he posted an 18-3 overall record. During his career, Comegy has helped send many athletes to the National and Canadian Football leagues. Some of his athletes are: Eric Williams, Jacon Shelly and Teka Brown of the Dallas Cowboys; Hugh Douglas of the New York Jets (1995 Rookie of the Year); Vince Buck of the New Orleans Saints; Marvin Pope of the San Francisco 49ers; Milton Jones of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; Kervin Wardroup of the Detroit Lions; Marvin Coleman of the Washington Redskins; Russell Meeks of the Calgary Stampeders; Jim Williams of the Chicago Bears; Drayton Florence of the San Diego Chargers; Frank Walker of the New York Giants; Kelvin Powell of the CFL's Edmonton Eskimos; Roosevelt Williams of the Chicago Bears; Bennitte Waddell of he Minnesota Vikings; Anthony Mitchell of the 2001 Super Bowl Championship Baltimore Ravens. In 2008, Jackson State's Lavarus Giles signed with as a free agent running back for the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The Pennsylvania native is a 1976 graduate of Millersville University of Lancaster, Pa., where he was a three-year letterman and an all-conference defensive back. With the opportunity to play for the Philadelphia Bells of the WFL, he left school for a year but returned in 1975 as a part-time student and coach, and earned a BS degree in sociology.

While coaching may take an ample amount of coach Comegy's time, he and his staff hold several youth football camps during the summer gearing each camp to teach participants the basic fundamentals of football in an energetic and positive atmosphere. Comegy is also a board member or Make A Wish Foundation in Jackson, Miss.

Comegy is affiliated with the Catholic Church and is a member of the American Football Coaches Association. He and his wife Connie are the parents of two girls and three boys: Mary, Connie, William, Rick and Billy Joe and have 13 grandchildren.