Rick Ray (born May 8, 1970) is an American basketball coach. He was most recently the head basketball coach at Southeast Missouri State. He was previously the head coach at Mississippi State. Ray was born in Compton, California; however, his family moved to Kansas City when Ray was 6 years old. He is an All-American Scholar Athlete basketball player who played at Grand View College, where he majored in Applied Mathematics and Secondary Education. After graduation, Ray worked as an actuary in Chicago, but soon realized that he wanted to be a basketball coach. He quit his actuary job and became a coach and teacher at a high school in Des Moines, Iowa. After 1+1⁄2 years, he left to become a graduate assistant coach at Nebraska-Omaha. While at Nebraska-Omaha, he also earned a master's degree i