Coach O'Neill's Battle

Mike O’Neill has been the head coach of the Varsity Collierville Dragons since 2012. From 2010–2011 Coach O’Neill served as the defensive coordinator and head strength coach. He also teaches Business Education at Collierville High. Coach O’Neill began coaching at the age of 18 working with the Germantown Middle School team for eight years. Prior to joining the CHS staff, Mike coached for nine years at Christian Brothers High School serving as defensive coordinator for six years. In 2005, CBHS was the State Championship Runner-Up. Before making a career change into education in 2000, Mike worked in the business world in sales and marketing. Mike is a graduate of Germantown High School where he lettered in Football and Baseball. As a student he won two state championships: he was a starting safety for the 1983 football team and catcher for the 1981 baseball team. Coach O’Neill was inducted into the Germantown Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997. He went on to play baseball for Memphis State University.

Not only has Mike been a fixture in Memphis area sports, he has also been a fixture in the lives of the young men he has coached.  When working with young people, you are often around when they make the mistakes of youth. Mikes philosophy has always been, there are few bad kids, just bad mistakes. 

He demands 3 main things from his players:

Loyalty, to them selves and their dreams, expectations and the program.

Effort, because you may not always be the biggest, or the fastest, but you can always win with effort.

Integrity, in what you give to the program, how you treat your teammates, and how you treat yourself.  This also includes honesty. 
 
What these three fundamentals teach is the building blocks of a life in service to your community, your family, and yourself.  That is what Mike O'Neill has done everyday since he took up the tools of a whistle and a piece of chalk.

But now Mike faces an opponent that requires more that a whistle, and a game  plan to beat. Its an opponent that attacks many in society, and is relentless in its desire to win. Cancer is that beast. Specifically Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the tonsil.  He and his wife Beth will be relocating to Houston TX, to MD Anderson Cancer Center. They will live in Houston for the next two months while they use all the resources of modern medicine to eliminate this cancer from their lives.

When they are done, Coach will return to our Collierville area, and take up the helm of his Dragon football team.

Your support of the O'Neill's and this fight will help to defray the costs of all the medical and living expenses during their time in Houston.

We hope you will give what ever you can to help coach compete with this vicious opponent. 

We believe that if we can eliminate the daily burdens in their lives, together they concentrate on getting this man back on the field.

One thing all of the community, and the hundreds of his ex and current players know, cancer has never faced this tough of an  opponent.