Cv’s Irwin Will Leave Behind Basketball, Personal Success

Terry Irwin’s career as an educator began with the intent of teaching elementary school. Coaching basketball never entered his mind.

“I was not even thinking of education at all and was burned out on athletics,” he said. “I had played them my whole life.”

Yet in 19 years in the Greater Spokane League, the last 13 at Central Valley High School, Irwin became one of the area’s most successful basketball coaches.

He announced his resignation last week after compiling a 279-167 overall record. He had 15 teams that finished in the GSL’s top three. Included were three league champions, five runners-up and two state placers.

But the game he loves finally wore him down.

“The problem with me is I internalize everything,” said Irwin. “The losses really ate at me.”

Resultant high blood pressure and hospitalizations the last two years with respiratory illness hastened his decision. His family has a history of heart disease.

The demands of coaching have become nearly year-around, which is something Irwin came to dread.

“It all adds up,” he said. “I won’t miss getting up at 3:30 in the morning and watching films. Now you feel you have to film everybody and watch them. There are not enough hours in the day.”

When a newly married Irwin turned to education for job stability his intent was to teach in the primary grades.

He originally taught at South Pines Elementary and later Evergreen Junior High.

Ron Jackson, for whom he had played summer baseball when he was a three-sport athlete at CV, asked him to help with the American Legion team and he discovered that he enjoyed working with the athletes.

During the 1975-76 school year, his brother Clark, who was principal at Gonzaga Prep, let him know of an assistant coaching opportunity. Within three years he was the Bullpups’ head coach.

“I was shocked when they hired me,” he said. “I was not ready for it. I really hadn’t thought much about coaching and never went to clinics. There’s a huge difference between B squad and varsity and I didn’t realize the pressures.”

The first year was a struggle, Irwin admitted. He kept only one senior, current WV coach Joe Feist, who competed for playing time with a sophomore named John Stockton.

A quick learner, Irwin guided the Bullpups to the league title the next season, and did so again in 1983.

The next year he moved to CV.

“My rationale was he was already proven at a GSL school,” said Chuck Stocker, who hired him when he was CV’s assistant superintendent. “No. 2, I felt he knew how to deal with kids. Lastly, he certainly knew X’s and O’s.”

Irwin had wanted to get back to the Valley, where he grew up and taught. He had been a finalist the previous year for the job at University High.

His initial Bear team went 3-13 in the GSL but had only one other losing season, in 1995.

Irwin’s coaching style was a mix of his own beliefs and things he gleaned from others. He learned to tailor his offense to his personnel, rather than the other way around, from the late Squinty Hunter of Lewis and Clark.

His defensive emphasis came from Frank Teverbaugh of Richland and Don Monson when he was at Pasco.

His strength, he said was his ability to accept kids as they were and to listen to what they said.

“I thought I got the most out of what we had,” said Irwin.

His weaknesses, he said, were in teaching offense and coaching at the end of a game.

Irwin’s resignation brought back a flood of memories, both good and bad. He coached against some of the country’s best athletes and some of the state’s best coaches.

He told his players last week about his decision to resign.

“When I told the kids, I could visualize every team,” Irwin said.

There was the play of Stockton, now the record-setting point guard for the Utah Jazz of the NBA.

CV’s David Sanders became the GSL’s most prolific scorer, including a 40-point game against his former teammates at U-Hi.

Irwin had inordinate success against the three Titan coaches.

He remembers Dave’s brother Doug sinking two free throws with no time left to beat Wenatchee in a regional game in 1987.

And he recalled the one-man scoring performance of Kevin Stocker during a quarterfinal loss to Auburn in 1988 when CV finished fourth in the State AAA tournament.

It was Irwin’s first of two state qualifying teams.

“I had my struggles at regional and don’t know why,” said Irwin.

The year he rues most was 1983, when Prep beat eventual state champion Richland during the year but lost to state second-place finisher Pasco in the regional.

A loss to Moses Lake in 1992 that deprived CV of state, he said, “took a toll on me.”

His young 1993 Bears placed seventh at state, won league and district the next year over Ferris but didn’t qualify for Seattle.

“That district championship game was a real highlight,” said Irwin. “We expended every ounce of energy and could not go on.”

Irwin said he will miss the electricity of the game which consumes a coach.

“It’s the closest thing to the excitement that I remember when I was a player,” he said.

In the meantime there’s a 20-inch trout to be caught in Montana and chores at home to catch up on.

“My wife asked me, I think it was 21 years ago, to put some weather stripping on the doors. I think I’ll do that now,” said Irwin.

“I don’t even know what the hell weather stripping is.”

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