Karen Carroll rattled off her plans for the next few weeks, and it was a full schedule.

Volunteer work, a trip to Tennessee and some time on the golf course were all on the agenda. What wasn’t, for the first time in a long time, was soccer, and that was just fine by her.

“Sitting back the other day, I was thinking, ‘I don’t have to be somewhere?’” she said with a laugh. “I’m getting used to it.”

Carroll retired at the end of the season after more than two decades as a youth and high school coach. She’d spent the past two seasons as Vicksburg High’s coach and turned around the Missy Gators’ sagging fortunes. She led them to back-to-back division championships in 2014 and 2015, and will ride off into the sunset as the Vicksburg Post soccer Coach of the Year.

“That’s certainly one way to go out, having back-to-back championships and being coach of the year,” said Carroll, who also won the award in 2006 when she was coaching at St. Aloysius. “It’s just been a pleasure to coach these kids, taking them from a mediocre team. They played together and made it happen. It was a great experience dealing with all of the players and their parents.”

The Missy Gators were once a state power, but had slipped over the past decade. They only won three games in 2012-13, the season before Carroll arrived, and hadn’t won a division title since 2005.

That changed last season, when they won the Division 4-5A championship. This year’s squad finished 11-5-1 and repeated as champs. Vicksburg didn’t win a playoff game in either season — it blew late leads to New Hope in 2014 and to Center Hill this season — but Carroll said she was happy with where she’s leaving the program.

“They’ve got a good core they can build around. We got five or six brand new players coming in the last couple of years, and they should be ready to go,” Carroll said.

Carroll added that the key to success for whoever follows her will be building a competitive local select program similar to the ones that feed perennial powers Madison Central and Clinton.

“None of these girls play outside of high school because they don’t have the opportunity. At the playoff level, that’s who they meet is teams that train year-round,” Carroll said. “They’re hanging with every team they play. If they played year-round, they’d be the Missy Gators of old.”

Carroll, who coached for nearly two decades in the Vicksburg Soccer Organization as well as high school, was once one of the people responsible for building the feeder programs. Not any more, though. She’s left soccer behind to tackle new adventures.

In the coming months the 55-year-old plans to travel the country with her husband Robert, do some volunteer work with the Salvation Army and play golf — lots of golf.

Carroll is an avid golfer who won the Warren County women’s championship six times. Her game slipped in recent years while she focused on soccer, so she’s looking forward to trading one sport for another.

“Soccer the last five or six years has dampened my golf game,” she said. “When I wasn’t coaching, I was trying to compete in the Ladies State Amateur. My game has gone away, so I need to tune it up a little bit.”

Vicksburg Post Coaches of the Year

2015 – Karen Carroll, Vicksburg

2014 – Greg Head, Warren Central

2013 – Greg Head, Warren Central

2012 – Greg Head, Warren Central

2011 – Trey Banks, Warren Central

2010 – Keiko Booth, St. Aloysius

2009 – Kevin Manton, Vicksburg

2008 – Jason Bennett, Vicksburg

2007 – Jason Bennett, Vicksburg

2006 – Karen Carroll, St. Aloysius

2005 – Jason Bennett, Vicksburg

2004 – Kristin Gough, Warren Central

2003 – Kevin Manton, Vicksburg

2002 – Kevin Manton, Vicksburg

2001 – Shirley Agostinelli, St. Aloysius

2000 – Jay Harrison, Warren Central

1999 – Kevin Manton, Vicksburg and Lucy Young, Warren Central