The Tyrone girls’ basketball team had an opportunity to meet their new head coach, Larry Starr, for the first time on Thursday afternoon.
Coach Starr had an enormous amount of success in his past with more than 400 career wins and four Virginia state championships.
Starr said that he is ecstatic to be coming to Tyrone, in part because it reminds him of his hometown in Ohio.
“Tyrone reminds me of the town I grew up in,” Starr said. “It was a sports town, smaller school… my daughter told me when I came here, ‘You’re going to think you’re in Toronto, Ohio.’”
Before coaching, Starr served in the U.S. Army and worked in the insurance industry for about 10 years. But after running an AAU team in Virginia, he decided to change careers and move into teaching and coaching full-time.
That decision led to a 17-year run at Monacan High School in Virginia, where he built one of the most successful girls’ basketball programs in the state.
At Monacan, Starr’s teams routinely contended for championships. They reached the state tournament 10 times. One of his squads was ranked as high as second in the nation and finished seventh after an undefeated season.
Over his career, Starr said that he has coached 30–40 Division I players, along with many more at the Division II and III levels. One former player, Megan Walker, went on to star at UConn and play in the WNBA.
Despite that success, Starr eventually stepped down from Monacan, in part to allow a former player and his longtime assistant to take over the program.
After a brief time coaching a small private school, Starr convinced his wife to move north to central PA to be closer to their daughter and grandchild, who live in State College.
“My wife didn’t want to go north because of the snow,” Starr said. “But I finally convinced her.”
After the move, Starr decided that his love for coaching was still strong and began looking for coaching opportunities in the area.
When he saw the job posting for Tyrone, Starr watched some film of the team and decided that it is a team that fits his personality.
“What I saw of you guys on film, you’re the perfect team for me to coach,” Starr said. “I saw hustle. I saw people being physical. I saw some skill. So that’s what I’m going to bring to the table, and I think once the girls get over the initial shock of the change and everything, I think everybody’s going to be excited to play.
Starr describes his coaching style as intense. He said that his teams will be in shape, defend tightly, and run disciplined offensive sets.
In Tyrone, Starr’s goals are to rebuild numbers on the varsity and junior varsity level, restore excitement around girls’ basketball, and compete for championships.
His plans include youth outreach, such as bringing first- through sixth-grade girls into the gym to watch practice and work with the team, building future generations of Lady Eagles.
“I want people to talk about the program,” Starr said.
Click the video above to see the full interview with Coach Starr.
