CV Basketball Coach Terry Irwin Retires After 13 Years At Central Valley And Six At G-Prep, He Steps Down To Spend More Time With His Family
Terry Irwin was looking back; Claire Irwin was looking ahead.
Terry Irwin, the dean of Greater Spokane League boys basketball coaches, is retiring.
He informed his Central Valley team of his decision Friday evening after the Bears’ season came to an end.
CV finished the season at 13-11 after finishing the GSL season in second place and advancing to the Eastern AAA Regional Tournament for the eighth time in the nine years the event has been held.
“It was very tough,” Irwin said. “It’s just a lot of things added up over the years. When I think back, and I certainly started to do that a lot, telling the kids in the locker room was one of the toughest things I’ve had to do.”
Irwin coached CV, his alma mater, for 13 years after six years at Gonzaga Prep. He won 140 GSL games and lost 68 at CV and was 67-29 at Prep. His overall record is 279-167. His teams won three GSL titles and he coached two state-placing teams at CV.
He coached John Stockton at Gonzaga Prep and Kevin Stocker at CV. Stockton is the all-time assist and steals leader in the NBA and Stocker is the starting shortstop for the Philadelphia Phillies.
He said if he had to pick one highlight from his 19 years, it would be coaching Stockton, “the best” in the world.
“I’m very supportive (of his decision),” Claire Irwin said. “He’s a coach I’m very proud of, as well as a person. We’re finally going to be able to do some things we’ve always wanted to do. We’ll finally be able to take a Christmas vacation.
“Basketball has always been his first love as far as his time. Now it’s switched around.”
The time commitment is one of the factors involved in his decision.
“I did not like the summer off-seasons,” he said. “I felt like it was almost a necessity because everyone else is doing it and if you don’t the parents get upset because you’re not working with the kids.
“The last couple of years I haven’t liked going to practice. I like the games, you always like the games, but you have to prepare and preparation became a job. I wasn’t putting in the time I should have and I felt like it short-changed the kids.”
Health was also a factor. After last season Irwin was hospitalized with pneumonia and blood clots and he was hospitalized again last month with bronchitis and high blood pressure.
“It all added up and I decided this is the time,” he said.
Claire Irwin said basketball and life will both change for the family. “We’ll be going and watching the game instead of being the game,” she said. “We’ve been married 28 years and he’s been a coach for more than 20 years. It’s been wonderful. He has a lot of wonderful things to give kids.”
Irwin is going to remain as a counselor at CV but now he will have more time to fly fish and golf.
“Knowing that our children are on their own and they all have wonderful people to spend their life with, we have gone full circle,” Claire Irwin said. “We always said when the kids are gone we want to be able to put some time back into just the two of us.
“Basketball was a 12-month job for him.”
Irwin graduated from CV in 1965. He was a starter on a team that finished fifth at state as a sophomore.
He attended Gonzaga University and the University of Washington and was an elementary teacher in Spokane when Gonzaga Prep needed an assistant. He was an assistant for two years before replacing Ron Donovan as head coach in 1977. He then replaced Stan Chalich at CV for the 1983-84 season.
“I always felt coaching was almost like a disease,” Irwin said. “Once you get involved in it, it’s hard to get rid of it. Making that decision is hard.”
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