Ira Edwyn Coates
Coach Ira Coates passed away at Jeff Davis County Extended Care Facility on Sept. 2, 2023. He was born on July 13, 1939, to Percy Ware Coates and Nancy Lucas Coates in Pinola. A celebration of life service was held on Sept. 7.
“Big” Ira was famously known as “Killer” Coates and “The Mendenhall Mauler” during his high school football glory days at Mendenhall High School in the late 1950s. He also played football on scholarship at Mississippi State University, Copiah-Lincoln Junior College, and finished up his college career at Delta State University. A Junior College All-American, he played in the National Junior College All-Star Game in New Mexico in 1959. He was inducted into the Co-Lin Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.
After college, he married Anna Carolyn West, of Hazlehurst, and they had five children, Renee, Lisa, Amy, Joe Buck, and John. Ira began his football and basketball coaching career at St. Martin Junior High in Ocean Springs in 1964. From there, he coached at Carr Junior High in Vicksburg and Ouachita Parish Junior High in Monroe, La., before coming back to Copiah County to coach at Co-Lin High School/Wesson Attendance Center from 1967-1970, then Copiah Academy from 1970-1974. He moved to Prentiss Christian School in 1993 through 2002, where he won a Junior District Championship and a MAIS State Championship. He also taught P.E., Health, and American History, was an avid World War II buff, and fan of John Wayne westerns. He touched the lives of hundreds of young men and women through his coaching and teaching career, and he rarely went anywhere that he didn’t know someone there. He was an avid hunter, fisherman, knife collector, and woodworking craftsman. He also mowed many a football field, fixed many a toilet at the schools where he taught, and refereed hundreds of football games. Even his grandkids called him “Coach.”
As his son, Joe Coates, reported in the Copiah County Courier in October 2012 when Coach was inducted into the Co-Lin Sports Hall of Fame, his presenter Curtis McMillian described Ira as “a bruising fullback with natural talent who left cleat marks in the backs of his own offensive linemen if they didn’t get out of his way.” His friends Pat Hennington, Alton Ricks, Alton Greenlea, and Mike Hux told his kids, “Ira was the meanest, toughest, son-of-a-gun that ever played football;” and “We used to run your Daddy ‘til his tongue dragged the ground and then kept on giving him the ball.” Some of his former players and students told us, “He knew how to get our attention, and he knew how to keep it.” Daddy told us about having to practice during halftime several times when he played football because Coach Wallace Beach was upset with their first half performance. Coach Beach’s threat to make them walk home behind the bus was taken seriously, and their opponents suffered crushing defeats after it was issued.
He leaves behind his wife, Cindy Smith Coates, of Prentiss; and his children, Renee (Roger) Berry, of Hazlehurst; Lisa Coates Jackson, of Wesson; Amy Coates (Kevin) Falcon, of Houston, Texas; Joe Buck (Karen) Coates, of Wesson; John Thomas (Brandi) Coates, of Crystal Springs; step-daughter, Angela (John) Lollis, of D’Iberville; grandchildren, Brodie Jackson, Connor Coates, Emily Claire Coates, Heather Harrison, Holly Harrison, Mary Beth Coates, Grayson Coates, Jessie Grace Cole; step-granddaughter, Lexi Adams; five nieces and nephews, many first cousins, and hundreds of friends, former students, players, and referee buddies.