Coach David Cox has announced his retirement as head coach of the Lady Pilgrims basketball team. Photo by: Patricia Ortiz
By Patricia Ortiz
After 20 years of coaching the PHS girls basketball team, Mr. Dave Cox is hanging up his basketball shoes.
During the 2011-2012 season of girls basketball coach Cox announced that he was to retire at the end of the season. His reasons for retiring as head coach, according to him, are “Coaching girls basketball at Plymouth High School was a job that took 11 months each year. The time required to coach a program that was constantly ranked in the top teams of the state in 3A is much greater then most people realize. We ran different level (grade) programs all the time. For 20 years I have not been able to do certain things because of my commitments to basketball. I have 9 grandchildren that I want to spend more time with. I also felt it was just time for someone else to lead the program. I also felt like I was not getting the job done in the classroom and I want to focus on becoming a high-quality biology teacher.”
The news of his retirement from coaching may have shocked a few people. Mr. Cox is unsure as to how the team reacted when he announced that he was retiring. He says that he has received “so many great e-mails, cards and letters from former players, coaches, parents, peers, etc. It has been very humbling.”
After coaching girls basketball for 20 years, Mr. Cox says that his favorite part about coaching has been, “the players and watching them grow as players and as people.” He states that this has been, “by far the best part of the job.” He states that his second favorite part about coaching has been, “my time and relationships I have developed with my coaching staff. That has been very special. My wife Karen and Varsity Assistant Dave Duncan have been around all 20 years. We have had alumni return to coach on our staff at various levels, and that is a great honor for me to serve as a mentor to them.”
The girls basketball team has gone to state and semi-state several times. According to Mr. Cox, he has been, “blessed when it comes to the success I have had with the Lady Pilgrim basketball program. We made it to the state 3A finals in 2001 and lost Indianapolis Cathral. Then in 2008 we return[ed] to the 3A state finals game to win the State Championship.” Mr. Cox says that, “When you make it to state finals or at least deep into the tourney, it takes the kids who played the prior few years to set the tone. Success is not set on one class at one point of time like one season, it is the combined result of many classes with unordinary visions all contributing to the resulting success.”
Being the coach of an outstanding basketball team has brought awards to Mr. Cox. He says that the success he has achieved is “the result of having players and families buying into a coach’s vision for his program. I had players that would run through the wall for me. Result was I had success, which brings with it some awards.” He states that the awards he has received are “an indication that you as coach have skilled players who have bought into your program’s philosophy as a basketball team.”