Mathis looks back at 35-year coaching career

There's a lot people don't understand about coaching. "When you're coaching, people just see you on Tuesday and Friday nights," said Westside girls coach Larry Mathis. "They aren't there when you come in at 12 or 1 from a long road trip and are doing the laundry. They have no idea the many hours you put in and how close you become to the kids."

And it's those close relationships that Mathis, who is retiring after 35 years as teacher and coach, will miss. "It's not the games that I'll miss the most," he said. "It's the relationship I had with the kids and the things that happen during the games or in practice. The hours you spend with the other coaches and the kids-they become your extended family."

Sports always had a family connection for Mathis, who remembers hanging out in the old Oceana High gym when his brother was playing for the Indians. "I lived beside Oceana High School when I was growing up," Mathis recalled. "I hung around the gym with Coach Paul Greer and Coach Huey Miller. They let me play ball with the guys, and I always thought I wanted to be a coach."

When the 1963 Indians won the AA state championship, he was scooped into the car to ride with the returning heroes in the parade through town. "That was the most exciting moment of my life as far as sports goes," Mathis said. "Stuff like that you don't forget."

He was a sophomore at OHS when the Indians went 26-0 and captured the 1965 state title. "I still hear people say that was the best AA team that ever played in the state tournament," he commented. "The closest game they had in the tournaments was 17 points."

By his senior year, Mathis was an all-stater, set a school single-game scoring record of 60 points and averaged 42 ppg in the last third of the season. "I just loved playing the game," Mathis said. "I felt like I was a good all-around player. My strongest part was just taking it to the hole. I averaged 12 or 13 a game just from the foul line. And I always guarded the toughest opponent we had."

"Coach Greer was a great influence on me, and to this day we remain very good friends," Mathis stated. By the time he left high school, he knew he wanted to be a coach himself. He played college hoops for Joe Cook at what was then Beckley Junior College and was good enough to attract interest from other schools, but a back injury before his sophomore season ended his playing career. "Joe had a bunch of good hustlers and really worked more on his defense than his offense," Mathis remembered.

He finished college at Marshall and was friends with members of the Thundering Herd football team who lost their lives in the 1970 plane crash. "That was one of the saddest days of my life (when I heard about the crash)," he said.

He began his coaching career at Kopperston Grade School in 1971. "I really had a good time," he said. "It was a good community school and had a lot of good little kids who won a lot of ballgames."

He took over the reins of the boys program at OHS in 1978. He led the Indians to their first state tournament appearance in 21 years in 1986 and again in 1987. "We averaged 15-16 wins a season and we would play anybody," Mathis said. "The Wyoming County rivalries were tremendous with Pineville, Baileysville, Oceana and Mullens,"

He left the post in January 1988 for health reasons and was succeeded by his assistant, current Westside boys coach Jim Hopkins. "We've known each other since we were kids, and he was like the little brother I never had," Mathis said. "We had great times, and to this day he remains one of my best friends."

Mathis teams played transition basketball and one of his best clubs topped the 100-point mark eight times in one season. "I took it too serious," he said. "A lot of that was my fault. If we won by 20 or lost by 20, I couldn't get to sleep. It got to me, as far as the health part of it. I tried not to miss it, but it was in my blood."

He coached other sports, such as golf, but he didn't coach hoops again until 1996-97, when he coached Oceana Middle (where his son, David, was on the team) to a pair of county championships. He took over the varsity girls program at OHS in 1998. "You had to be way more patient with girls," he discovered. "That first year we spent a lot more time on the fundamentals."

He says he was able to go back to coaching because his attitude had changed. "I came back with a more open attitude of let's have fun and enjoy this," he commented.

A big factor in that change was the illness of his oldest son, Jason. "He got very sick, and that was a life changing situation. That's exactly when I found out basketball is not nearly as important as I thought it was." "I became more involved in church," he reflected, "I'm a Christian, and without God I couldn't have made it through what I went through with Jason." "I went through the death of both parents, and when you depend on the Lord, you can make it through a lot of things."

He won sectional championships at both Oceana and Westside, where he has coached for four years. "I tried to have the program respected," he said.

He has fond memories of his many fine players and his assistant coaches over the years, including John Cook, "Beetle" Bailey, Jamie Lusk, Dickie Cook, Robert Lyons, Jr., and Hopkins. "I enjoyed being around those guys," he said.

Mathis enjoyed coaching against fellow county coaches Don Nuckols at Mullens, Bob Stewart at Pineville and Dean Lee at Baileysville. He also formed friendships with officials, with media folk like Paige Cline and Dan Stillwell and with sports fan Frank Brooks.

Son Jason and daughter-in-law, Deborah, will soon make him a grandfather, and he looks forward to spending more time with his wife and family. "While I've got a little health left, I want to spend more time with them," he said. "I figured (coaching) would last till my last day of teaching," Mathis said. "I had it in me too much. I wouldn't change a whole lot. I would have tried to be a better person earlier in my coaching career and not have been so hard on them. I love all the kids, and I tried to treat everybody fair."

"Thirty-five years," he reflected, "is a long time."