Ken Karcher announces his retirement from East Central Community College after 10 seasons as head football coach.

The second longest-tenured football coach in East Central Community College history has announced his retirement effective at the conclusion of the current 2022 season.

Ken Karcher has led the ECCC Warrior football program for the past 10 seasons, twice earning coach of the year honors and winning the first South Division title in school history.

“Ken Karcher is that coach who every mom and dad wants their son to play football for,” said East Central Community College President Dr. Brent Gregory.

Karcher will be recognized at the final home football game of the 2022 season Thursday, October 20, against Copiah-Lincoln. The annual Homecoming game kicks off at 6:30 p.m. at Bailey Stadium on the campus in Decatur.

Gregory said the search for Karcher’s replacement would begin immediately following the final game of the season. ECCC will conclude the 2022 season on October 27 at Pearl River in Poplarville.

“Ken Karcher has left his mark on the Warrior football program with everything that has been accomplished on and off the field,” said ECCC Director of Athletics Paul Nixon.

Karcher guided the 2015 ECCC football team to an 8-3 record, still the program’s best win-loss record since 1999. The Warriors advanced to the semifinals of the 2015 Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges state playoffs, before losing to eventual state champion Northwest Mississippi Community College 27-20 in Senatobia. It was ECCC’s first appearance in the state playoffs since 2001.

East Central then accepted an invitation to the 2015 C.H.A.M.P.S. Heart of Texas Bowl in Copperas Cove, Texas, where the Warriors defeated the Kilgore College Rangers 35-21. It was the college’s first bowl game since 1996, and only the fourth bowl game since the Warriors began playing football in 1928.

Karcher’s 2016 squad won the college’s first-ever MACJC South Division Title, advancing to the state playoffs before falling 20-14 to eventual state champion Northwest.

He was named Mississippi Association of Coaches Community College Football Coach of the Year in both 2015 and 2016.

“East Central and Decatur will always hold a special place in our hearts, and I am grateful for each person who has blessed my life over the last 10 years,” said Karcher.

Karcher was announced as ECCC’s 21st head football coach on January 25, 2013, having previously served four years as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at NCAA Division I Eastern Michigan University. Over his 32 years in coaching, Karcher also served six seasons as head football coach at NCAA Division I Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and as an assistant at the University of Toledo, at Fellowship Christian High School in Roswell, Ga., for the Rhein Fire (Dusseldorf, Germany) of NFL Europe, at the University of Pittsburgh, for the Orlando Thunder of the World League of American Football, and at North Texas State University.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pa., Karcher was a highly recruited quarterback at Shaler Area High School where he was selected a Parade All-American in 1980. He played college football at both the University of Notre Dame and Tulane University.

He played in the NFL as a member of the Denver Broncos, playing as a replacement player during the 1987 players’ strike. The Broncos retained him for the rest of the year, and Karcher was a backup to John Elway when the team played in Super Bowl XXII in 1988.