Richard McCoy would recite speeches from Shakespeare’s “King Lear” throughout the halls of his high school in San Francisco Bay, California, knowing that one day he would teach. Now a prominent English professor specializing in the Elizabethan and Tudor eras, McCoy has been named Queens College’s 14th distinguished professor by the City University of New York board of trustees. “[It] really validates all the work I’ve been doing — it really feels great,” McCoy said. McCoy loved living in California. He received his BA in Stanford University and his Ph.D. in the University of California, Berkeley. In 1975, McCoy’s wife got a job at Columbia teaching Chinese literature. When they…