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Michael Joy has changed addresses, from college to high school.

Joy, the recently retired 26-year head coach at Tusculum University, was named Friday as girls’ soccer coach at Morristown East.

Joy has coached collegiately, beginning with coaching soccer as a club sport at the University of Kentucky in 1990.

“My task (at UK) was to take soccer from a club sport and elevating it to varsity status,” Joy said. “Athletic Director C.M. Newton and Kathy DeBoor (both) asked me to do that. We had enough interest and we were successful in recruiting.”

At UK, Joy led the team to 20 wins in two seasons as a club program and helped to spearhead the adoption of girls’ soccer as a high school varsity sport in Kentucky. He coached the Kentucky Kickers club team to 12 state championships.

Joy was a business owner at that time and decided to sell his business to concentrate on college coaching. He coached at Midway University (Kentucky) for five seasons, winning the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship each year. He compiled an 86-25-5 record at Midway.

Joy made his biggest progress at Tusculum University in Greeneville, where in his 26 years as coach, the Pioneers won at least a share of five South Atlantic Conference championships (2000, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2016) and four SAC Tournament titles (2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005). The Pioneers also captured the NCAA Division II Southeast Region title in 2006, one of five NCAA Tournament appearances under Joy (2003, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009).

“I decided at age 66 that I was going to retire from collegiate coaching,” Joy said. “I wanted to go back into teaching.”

Joy is known as an educator and a communicator.

“I think a lot of it comes down to making it clear to communicate to players the techniques and tactics and making sure they are technically sound,” he said. “Fitness is such a big part of the game of soccer. We don’t have time outs so we have to get them fit as well. Those three components are very important.”

Joy expressed the hope to be positive to his players.

“I like to be very positive,” he said. “We all work better with a little bit of positive motivation. It’s got to be fun. It’s got to be something that you enjoy doing.”

While Joy has not coached at a high school, he has worked with high-school level talent over the years through the club program.

“Soccer has been a big part of our family,” Joy said. “I’ve been coaching club soccer and won 12 state championships in Kentucky.”

Joy and his wife Kathy, are the parents of three children, Heather, Lesli, and Justin. Heather graduated from Tusculum University in 1999 after two seasons as goalkeeper. Lesli is a graduate of Midway College, and Justin currently lives in Lexington, Ky. Joy also has one grandson, Tyler, who is also a college soccer coach at IUPU-Columbus, and six granddaughters, Madison, Brooklynn, Jaydan, Briana, Alexa and Tatum.