Riley Announces Staff Promotions

Oregon State University head football coach Mike Riley announced Tuesday the promotions of Jay Locey from assistant head coach to Chief of Staff and Trent Bray from a graduate assistant position to full-time assistant coach for linebackers. With these moves, Oregon State will now have four full-time coaches on both offense and defense to create balance on both sides of the ball.

Locey just completed his seventh season as a coach, the last four with the position responsibility for tight ends and the previous three with the Beaver wide receivers. His new role includes the responsibilities of prescreening of opponents, team building activities, leadership development, career/job placement opportunities for OSU football student-athletes, Varsity "O" Football alumni engagement, fundraising, coordinating incoming football student-athletes into the summer BEST Program (high school to college academic/athletics transition), and high school and community relations.

"I'm very excited to have Jay in this new role," Riley said. "There is no better person than Jay to fill this crucial role because he has a great football mind, is an excellent communicator and has a genuine ability to connect with people."

Locey, who officially begins his new role July 1 pending final approval by the university's administration, came to OSU after a tremendously successful career at Linfield College in nearby McMinnville. He is one of the most successful coaches in the history of small college football. The five-time Northwest Conference Coach of the Year led the Wildcats to the 2004 NCAA Division III title and in 10 years as the head coach, guided the program to a record of 84-18, including a streak of 41 consecutive wins.

Locey's former responsibility as the tight ends coach will be handled by a yet to be named graduate assistant coach.

Bray is one of the most accomplished linebackers to ever play at OSU, returning to Corvallis to serve as a graduate assistant coach last season. He spent the 2009-11 seasons as the linebackers coach at Arizona State, the last two as full-time after serving 2009 as a graduate assistant.

"We were very fortunate to have Trent as a graduate assistant last season and he proved what I already knew that he is a bright young coach who has a tremendous future in our business," Riley said. "He is going to continue to have a major impact with the development of our linebackers and will be an outstanding recruiter for the Beavers."

Bray started 34 of 49 career games at OSU from 2002-05, including 33 straight. He was the 2004 Insight Bowl Defensive MVP after making 10 tackles in the victory over Notre Dame. Bray was a Pac-10 Conference first team selection as a senior and second team as a junior. For his career he made 337 tackles, currently sixth in the OSU record book.