Ritchie Lawrence McKay (born April 22, 1965) is an American

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

coach who is in his second stint as the head coach of the

Liberty Flames The Liberty Flames and Lady Flames are the athletics teams of Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia, United States. They are a member of the NCAA Division I level in 20 sports. LU is a member of the ASUN Conference for most sports. Two sp ...

Liberty University Liberty University (LU) is a private Baptist university in Lynchburg, Virginia. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia (Southern Baptist Convention). Founded in 1971 by Jerry Falwell Sr. and Elmer L. Towns, Liberty i ...

. McKay for the last 6 seasons had been the associate head coach to

Tony Bennett Anthony Dominick Benedetto (born August 3, 1926), known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American retired singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett is also a painter, having created works under his birth ...

for the

Virginia Cavaliers The Virginia Cavaliers, also known as ''Wahoos'' or ''Hoos'', are the athletic teams representing the University of Virginia, located in Charlottesville. The Cavaliers compete at the NCAA Division I level ( FBS for football), in the Atlantic C ...

at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

. He had previously been the head coach of the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

Oregon State Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering col ...

Colorado State Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a public land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University System. Colorado State University is classified among "R1: ...

Portland State Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decades ...

, and Liberty. On April 3, 2009, McKay was hand-selected by Bennett and lured from his head coaching position at Liberty to become Associate Head Coach at Virginia. On April 1, 2015, he returned as head coach of the Liberty Flames.Release on 4/1/15: McKay Returns to Liberty as Flames Men's Head Basketball Coach
/ref> McKay holds the Liberty school record for single-season wins, with his team attaining a record of 30–4 (as of March 9, 2020) in the 2019–20 season after winning the

ASUN Conference The ASUN Conference, formerly the Atlantic Sun Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Divisio ...

regular season and tournament championships.

Life and sports

McKay got his first head coaching job with

. After a poor first year, McKay led the team to a third-place conference finish in his second season. He used that success as a springboard to his next coaching job, this time at

. He stayed two seasons there before heading to

, and then another two at Oregon State before accepting the head coaching position at New Mexico. While there, he experienced mixed success. In 2005, his team won the Mountain West tournament and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. That successful season helped launch forward

Danny Granger Danny Granger Jr. (born April 20, 1983) is an American former professional basketball player who played ten seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was drafted by the Indiana Pacers in 2005 after a two-year college stint at New ...

to an

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

career. Still, McKay couldn't turn New Mexico into a consistent program, and in February 2007, he was fired. McKay then took a job at Liberty University, where he took the Flames to

Big South Conference The Big South Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I. Originally a non-football conference, the Big South began sponsoring football in 2002 as part of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Th ...

semifinals in back-to-back years. His second-year, with the help of

Seth Curry Seth Adham Curry (born August 23, 1990) is an American professional basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for one year at Liberty University before transferring to Duke. ...

, McKay led the LU to a Division I school-record 23 wins and a bid to the inaugural

CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament The CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT) was an American men's college basketball postseason tournament founded by Collegeinsider.com. The tournament was oriented toward schools that did not get selected for the NCAA Division I men's ...

. After the season ended, Curry transferred to

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

, and McKay's longtime friend

was hired as head coach of the

. Bennett then asked McKay to join his staff as his associate head coach, and McKay accepted. On April 1, 2015, McKay was selected to return to

as head coach. En route to a school-record 28 wins, McKay's Flames defeated the storied

UCLA Bruins The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). ...

on their home court in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

by 15 points, prompting the immediate firing of UCLA head coach

Steve Alford Stephen Todd Alford (born November 23, 1964) is an American men's college basketball coach and former professional player who is the head coach for the Nevada Wolf Pack of the Mountain West Conference (MWC). Born and raised in Indiana, he was a ...

in December 2018, before the

Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

season even began. Ironically, it was Alford who replaced McKay at New Mexico after his firing there nearly 12 years earlier. The following year, he was the 2019 recipient of the

Jim Phelan Award The Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year Award (formerly called the CollegeInsider.com National Coach of the Year Award from 2003 to 2009) is an award given annually to the most outstanding men's college basketball head coach in NCAA Division I ( ...

Personal life

McKay graduated from Westwood High School, and played college basketball at

Seattle Pacific University Seattle Pacific University (SPU) is a private Christian university in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1891 in conjunction with the Oregon and Washington Conference of the Free Methodist Church as the Seattle Seminary. It became the Seat ...

, where he set the single-season and career record for steals, and he was third in career assists. McKay has a wife, Julie, daughter, Ellie, and sons Luke and Gabriel.

Head coaching record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McKay, Ritchie 1965 births Living people American men's basketball players Basketball coaches from Indiana Basketball players from Indianapolis Bradley Braves men's basketball coaches College men's basketball head coaches in the United States Colorado State Rams men's basketball coaches Liberty Flames basketball coaches New Mexico Lobos men's basketball coaches Oregon State Beavers men's basketball coaches Portland State Vikings men's basketball coaches Seattle Pacific Falcons men's basketball players Virginia Cavaliers men's basketball coaches Washington Huskies men's basketball coaches