Cold Spring Harbor schools football, wrestling coach Randel McCoy dies at 40 of ALS

To most familiar with ALS, the initials stand for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive, terminal disease affecting the nervous system and ultimately all muscle control. For Cold Spring Harbor School District wrestling and football coach Randel McCoy and his wife, Brianna LaFontaine-McCoy, ALS also stands for A Love Story.

"Those two were pretty special together," said LaFontaine-McCoy's father, former Islanders star and NHL Hall of Famer Patrick LaFontaine.

"Randel was a gift in our lives," LaFontaine added, "and he was a gift to everyone he met."

Randel McCoy, 40, died Dec. 6 after a yearslong battle with ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

'Heartbreaking ending'

His romance with the woman who would become his wife, in which she would accept McCoy's marriage proposal fully aware he had ALS, "was like a movie," said his friend and fellow high school coach Anthony Servidio, of Huntington.

"But it was definitely real," Servidio added, "with a heartbreak ending."

LaFontaine described ALS as "an insidious disease" that took his son-in-law "too young."

"The average [life expectancy] is three to five years," he said. "Randel lived almost eight."

McCoy’s family and friends, LaFontaine added, "spent a lifetime with him in those eight years."

He was easy to love, Servidio said. "He formed great relationships with the student-athletes, and the connection was real."

A legion of social media messages from McCoy's past mentees and others attested to his effect on them.

A lasting bond

"Every student-athlete he coached formed a bond with him. Whole generations of players knew him not just as a legend, but as their coach," Vic Hernandez wrote on the Facebook group page he administers, Long Island Football History.

Born Jan. 25, 1985, in Huntington, Kenya Randel Garrett went primarily by his mother Evelyn Correathia McCoy’s maiden name. He made McCoy official legally in 2019.

He and his older half brother, Tahid, were raised by their mother, a hairdresser, in Huntington Station. After Evelyn McCoy's 1993 diagnosis of HIV, the brothers were raised by their grandmother Devella McCoy and a host of uncles and aunts. Evelyn McCoy died in 1994, at age 36, four days before Randel’s 9th birthday.

The child grew up to be "an unbelievable natural athlete," LaFontaine said of his son-in-law. McCoy played varsity sports at Huntington High School, excelling particularly at football, where he became the Blue Devils’ "main offensive threat," according to a Newsday story in 2002. That year he was MVP of the Suffolk Police Athletic League all-star game and was named to other local all-star teams — while also, in an unusual duality, being named male Class Clown in his yearbook senior year.

Following his 2003 graduation, McCoy attended Suffolk County Community College at the Brentwood campus; Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Five Towns College in Dix Hills, where he graduated with an education degree.

He was a football and wrestling coach for Cold Spring Harbor seventh and eighth graders and coached varsity wrestling at Cold Spring Harbor High School, where he also worked as a teaching assistant. McCoy had previously been a permanent substitute for Westbury elementary schools.

Love put to test

In the summer of 2017, he met Brianna LaFontaine through a mutual friend. The couple were soon inseparable.

That October, they professed their love for each other — and confronted the fact that something undetermined was happening to McCoy's health. After a series of tests, the couple learned on Feb. 17, 2018, he had ALS. Just over a year later, while vacationing on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, McCoy proposed marriage, with trepidation. He needn’t have been concerned: Brianna said yes immediately. They married on Nov. 8, 2019.

The couple and their families dealt with the disease day by day. A segment of the Oct. 19, 2021, edition of ESPN2’s newsmagazine E60 titled "A Love Story" detailed how Brianna cared for McCoy as the ALS slowly progressed to the point where he used a wheelchair. He continued teaching and coaching as long as he could.

Other friends and family pitched in.

About two years ago, McCoy, needing 24-hour care, took up residence at Gurwin Jewish Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Commack, where he died.

His spirit remained indomitable, Patrick LaFontaine said.

"In that chair he was Command Central. I played chess with him all the time on my iPhone — it was competitive. He would watch football games, he would text his friends, he would be playing music." Brianna, a special education teacher, "was always visiting since it was only eight minutes from their home," he said. "Every morning the first thing she did was text Randel, and again throughout the day to check in on him."

In addition to his wife and half brother Tahid McCoy, both of Huntington, McCoy is survived by his father, Randy Garrett, of St. Louis, Missouri; half brothers Randy Garrett and D’Marco Bailey, and half sisters, Randyycia Garrett and Rashonda Garrett Samuel, all of St. Louis.

Visitation will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday at the Church of St. Patrick in Huntington. McCoy will be cremated. Donations can be made to ALS United Greater New York or to the ALS foundation Team Gleason.