Colt McCoy is best known for his success at the quarterback position for the University of Texas (UT) Longhorns based in Austin, Texas. In fact, his success as a college quarterback was so prolific that he reached benchmarks never before achieved by anyone, including setting the all-time record for most wins by a quarterback with a total of 45 in a four-year career.
Chief among the many reasons for Colt’s success is his father, Brad McCoy, who played at UT in his youth and coached Colt in high school, and Jordan Shipley, who in addition to being a good friend and former roommate for Colt, was also his favorite receiver during the four years the two played together in college. Interestingly, there is a link between Brad McCoy and Jordan Shipley that eludes Colt entirely.
Jordan Shipley has a father named Bob Shipley, who served as the high school football coach of his son, the record-breaking wide receiver for a small town in central Texas with a population of 1,600. Bob Shipley played football at the University of Texas when he was younger and during that time was a teammate, friend and even a roommate with Brad McCoy, the man who would eventually become the father of Colt McCoy.
Jordan Shipley and Colt McCoy were born less than a year apart in the mid-1980s and grew up in small Central Texas towns that are an hour and a half apart on opposite sides of the small Texan town of Abilene. Jordan was raised in Rotan, TX (population 1611) while Colt grew up in Tuscola, TX (population 714) 80 miles south of Rotan.
Interestingly, both Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley had parents who served as high school football coaches at their respective schools and the two featured players played complementary offensive positions with Colt at quarterback and Shipley at wide receiver. Both players became nationally known soccer stars while playing college football together in Austin, Texas, which is just a little over 200 miles south of where the two boys grew up.
The relationship that Bob Shipley and Brad McCoy formed decades earlier was completed when their two sons followed in their footsteps and became not only contributing players to the University of Texas Longhorns football program, but more importantly, in good friends. The bond between the McCoy and Shipley families is unique and full of shared experiences that are likely to continue for a lifetime and possibly for generations to come.
