Troup head boys basketball coach Darin Harley picked up his 350th-career win as a head coach on Dec. 13 when the Tigers beat Frankston, 28-19, in the Frankston Tournament.

Darin Harley, Troup High School’s basketball coach, recently reached a milestone, winning his 350th game.

On Dec. 13, his Tigers defeated the Frankston Indians in Frankston for the achievement.

“While I appreciate the recognition, there are many coaches out there that have won just as many games and most a lot better coach than me,” the humble Harley said. “Longevity is probably the main reason. … I’ve been around a long time.”

Harley was a three-year member of the Troup basketball teams in the 1980s under East Texas coaching icon Mike Thomas, who is now retired on his farm near Douglass. Later, Gerald Anthony and Leland Hand continued the foundation that Thomas laid and took it to new heights, including multiple state titles and state tournament trips.

After graduating from Troup in 1985 and later the University of Texas at Tyler, Harley got his first basketball job in Gorman in West Texas.

With his wife, Shelly, continuing her studies of anesthesiology at Texas Wesleyan University, Harley took a map and made a circle of a 30-mile radius around Fort Worth for an area to look for a coaching job.

He saw Gorman High School in West Texas had an opening for a basketball coach. With his wife waiting in the car for three hours, he was grilled about the 4-3 defense in football.

“When the interview was finished, they asked if I wanted to be defensive coordinator on the football team,” Harley told the Tyler Morning Telegraph in 2017, his first year as Troup head coach. “I asked about the basketball job because that was what I was interested in. They said ‘oh, you can have that too if you want.’”

Then, he was coaching at Norman High School in Norman, Oklahoma, for three years and, “I had to follow the bread-winner in the family when my wife got a job near Orange.”

He went to Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School for 14 years where he was head coach for 11 seasons.

The Harleys returned to East Texas and settled in Bullard. His wife is a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists at UT Heath East Texas-Jacksonville.

Then the Troup basketball position came open in May 2017 and his Troup buddies started calling him, urging him to apply for the job.

“No coach wins without good players,” Harley said. “I have been fortunate to have enough good players to keep me employed. Having a supporting spouse deserves mention. My wife has been with me since I first started. Her role of a coach’s wife has been imperative to me sticking around this long.”

The Tigers are 15-6 on the season, bringing Harley’s record to 358-240.

Troup opens District 16-3A play on Friday at Gladewater. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

DISTRICT 16-5A BASKETBALL

The boys portion of District 16-5A basketball gets underway Friday. There are doubleheaders with the girls teams playing first at 6:15 p.m., followed by the boys.

Friday’s sked includes: Longview Pine Tree at John Tyler; Whitehouse at Hallsville; Lufkin at Nacogdoches; and Marshall at Jacksonville.

In the girls standings, Jacksonville, Lufkin and Nacogdoches are all 2-0, followed by Whitehouse and Pine Tree at 1-1. JT, Hallsville and Marshall are 0-2.

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