Eighty-one years young and still teaching the fundamentals of basketball. Mickey J. Perry has worked his magic as a basketball instructor in Ventura County gyms for more than five decades.
From 1960-63, Mickey taught at DeAnza Junior High School. He moved to Ventura High in 1963, beginning a 22-year tenure. Mickey coached Ventura’s lower levels programs for seven seasons, compiling an overall record of 160-16. He was promoted as the Ventura varsity head coaching position for the 1970-71 season. In a 15-year career as Ventura High’s boys basketball coach, Perry’s teams won 217 games, five Channel League championships and made the class 4A section quarterfinals twice. He was named as the county coach of the year three times in a six-year stretch.
His 1976-77 team was 24-4 and reached the Division 4A quarterfinals, at the time the highest division in the CIF-Southern Section boys basketball playoffs. The following season, Ventura finished 25-2, advancing to the 4A semifinals. The 1982-83 Ventura team was 23-2, losing in the first round of the playoffs. Mickey’s teams reached 19 tournament finals, winning eight times.
He was elected to the Southern California Interscholastic Basketball Association Hall of Fame in 1990.
Besides teaching math at Ventura, he served two terms as the school’s athletic director, from 1972-74 and 1976-95. Perry resigned as the Ventura High boys basketball coach after the 1984-85 season, but he has continued to be active in the sport. He was employed by the Ventura Unified School District for 39 years, teaching mathematics. Mickey was named as the district’s Teacher of the Year in 1996. He was named to Ventura High’s Hall of Fame in 1990. From 1985, Mickey has taught mathematics at Ventura College.
Perry has been a co-director of the Perry/Vaughan Basketball Camp since 1976 and a board member of the Ventura Youth Basketball Association for more than 20 years.
He and his late wife Patricia were married for 52 years.