A.C. Flora Names New Head Basketball Coach

Michael Burgess has been named the new head boys’ basketball coach at A.C. Flora High School in Richland School District One.

Burgess, a Greenville native and USC graduate, is coming to Richland One from Lexington High School, where he teaches social studies and is an assistant boys’ basketball coach and an assistant varsity football coach. He has worked in Richland One before, teaching and coaching at Lower Richland High School from 1996-1999.

"It is with a deep sense of commitment and an even deeper sense of duty that I look forward to being a part of the A.C. Flora family," Burgess said. "The school has an outstanding tradition of academic and athletic excellence, and it is humbling to be chosen to be part of such an organization."

"The task at Flora will be to build on the foundation laid by Coach Don Bell - a great coach and an even greater man - and to continue to have a program that is a class act on and off the floor," he said. Don Bell, who was the head boys’ basketball coach and a social-studies teacher at Flora, died of cancer in July 2005.

Burgess and his wife, Chrystal, are the proud parents of two children, Caylee and Jackson, and they are eagerly anticipating the birth of their third child.