March 22, 2012. BOONE — Mark Ivey, a four-year football letterwinner at Appalachian State University from 1992-95, has returned to his alma mater as a defensive assistant coach, head coach Jerry Moore officially announced on Wednesday.
Official titles have not yet been assigned to the Appalachian’s new defensive assistant coaches (Ivey and Bryan Brown) but Ivey will work primarily with linebackers and special teams while Brown is working with the team’s cornerbacks.
Ivey returns to Appalachian State after 16 years as a high-school coach in Florida, including the last 10 seasons as head coach at Cypress Lake H.S. in Fort Myers (2002-06) and Barron Collier H.S. in Naples (2007-11). In five successful campaigns as the head coach at Barron Collier, Ivey led the Cougars to a 36-19 overall record and state playoff appearances all five years. BCHS won three-straight district championships from 2007-09, doubling the number of district titles that the school had claimed in its first 29 years of existence.
In addition to his decade of experience as a head coach, Ivey also served as an assistant at Port Charlotte, Cape Coral and Gulf Coast high schools in western Florida from 1996-2001.
Ivey played five seasons for Moore as a linebacker and defensive lineman from 1991-95. After redshirting as a true freshman in ‘91, Ivey went on to record 166 tackles in 47 games for the Black and Gold from 1992-95. As a senior, he started 12-of-13 games and tallied 66 tackles, four sacks and eight tackles for loss to help lead the Mountaineers to a perfect 11-0 regular season and the 1995 Southern Conference championship. In all, he started 28 games at defensive tackle and was a part of four NCAA Division I-AA playoff teams during his collegiate career.
A native of Collinsville, Va., Ivey was an all-district and all-region gridiron performer at Martinsville H.S. He made 339 tackles over his final two prep seasons and was also a two-time district champion in wrestling, an all-district and all-region honoree in baseball and an all-district selection in volleyball.
Ivey graduated from ASU in 1996 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial technology (furniture production concentration). In addition to coaching, he also taught math, computer-aided drafting and materials and processing in his 16 years in high-school education.
With the addition of Ivey, fourth-year staff member John Mark Hamilton will move into a yet-to-be-determined role within the football program.
Photo courtesy of Appalachian Sports Information.
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