After passing Knight, Rupp, Smith and others, William Jewell’s Larry Holley to retire
William Jewell College’s Larry Holley has nearly 1,500 games to his credit as a head coach, and the school announced on Tuesday that this will be the final of his nearly 50 seasons in the profession.
But there’s no time to get nostalgic just yet, especially after the Cardinals blew a late lead and lost their most recent game.
“For 35 minutes and 35 seconds, we couldn’t have played any better,” Holley said.
If the Cardinals, currently 9-14, don’t reach the postseason, seven games remain in the regular season, and in Holley’s 48-year career — the last 40 years of which he has spent at Jewell, his alma mater.
Holley’s 916 victories are good for ninth among all men’s basketball coaches. The next six on the list are Bob Knight, Jim Calhoun, Dean Smith, Adolph Rupp, Roy Williams and Bob Huggins.
“This has been a perfect place for me to coach,” Holley said.
Photos of all of Holley’s Jewell teams hang on his office wall. Among them are 12 conference-title teams, 25 that won at least 20 games and four that won at least 30. They Cardinals have been to 14 NAIA Tournaments, including three Elite Eights and four Final Fours.
Holley oversaw the program’s transition from NAIA to NCAA Division II and pulled off a 20-9 record last season.
After this season, he’ll slow down but continue to run the school’s summer basketball camps. He also plans to finish a book on the basketball history of the school, a period that stretches 120 years.
“I’ll get to do some things,” said Holley, 73. “For about 300 days each of the last 40 years, I’ve gotten up and gone to William Jewell.”
The pace will slow down after this season.
This story was originally published February 5, 2019 at 4:30 PM with the headline "After passing Knight, Rupp, Smith and others, William Jewell’s Larry Holley to retire."