VGCC names new Vanguards basketball coach
Vance-Granville Community College has named DeMarcus Oliver as the new head coach of the Vanguards men’s basketball team. Oliver (pictured above) served as assistant coach, and later interim head coach, for VGCC during the 2015-2016 season. He will lead VGCC’s program into its ninth season of play in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region X this fall.
Oliver is a Granville County native and a 1999 graduate of J.F. Webb High School in Oxford, where he was a year-round student-athlete, participating in basketball, football and outdoor track. In his senior year, at the guard position, Oliver was a member of an outstanding Warriors basketball team that won the conference championship and regular season championship and advanced to the Eastern Regional Championship game. At J.F. Webb, he played alongside Taron Downey, who continued his basketball career at Wake Forest University.
Upon graduation, he pursued a 14-year career as a professional automotive and insurance sales consultant, while continuing to share his passion for basketball with youth through the Henderson Family YMCA and Oxford Parks & Recreation Department youth basketball leagues.
Oliver has served as volunteer assistant boys basketball coach at Northern Granville Middle School, helping lead the team to a Mac 9 Conference Championship (2012), head boys basketball coach at Henderson Middle School, and head boys basketball coach at Mary Potter Middle School.
He is the founder, executive director, and head coach of the Vance Granville Warriors Basketball Club, a youth basketball program established in 2011 for boys and girls in Vance and Granville counties. Since the inception of his program, Oliver has coached players ranging in ages from 8 to 17 years old. In its third year as an AAU Basketball program, the Vance Granville Warriors grew from three teams and 38 players to six teams and 73 players. Several Vance Granville Warriors teams have had success in state and national AAU tournaments.
Oliver is now a full-time employee with Granville County Schools, as Dean of Students at his alma mater, J.F. Webb High School.
“We are looking forward to Coach Oliver leading our Vanguards,” said Jeffrey Allen, VGCC’s director of student activities and athletics. “He brings to our program a great deal of enthusiasm, experience and close ties to our local community.”
For more information about VGCC basketball, contact Coach Oliver at oliverd@vgcc.edu or visit athletics.vgcc.edu .
