The return to the hardwood of Pleasant Valley High coaching legend Denny Varley came out of nowhere a few weeks ago, definitely solidifying the Vikings direction as defending section girls champions. We caught up with Varley to find out how this return all came about.
Denny Varley says, "I came over in fall of '68, so the '69 season was my first season, I'm going back home yeah."
From 1969 to 1999, Denny Varley coached varsity boy's and girl's basketball at Pleasant Valley High School. After calling it a career for a decade, he's decided to stroll the sidelines once again.
Varley says, "It wasn't planned, I hadn't really thought too much about it, there had been some things that kind bothered me about not having a girls camp in the summer for the younger girls so I volunteered to do that this year. One thing led to another and Mr. Sheppard, the principal at P.V. called me and wanted to talk with me and we had a long talk about the program so all the sudden I was the new co-varsity basketball coach at P.V.."
But he's not taking on this opportunity alone. Varley will be teaming up with former Chico State Guard Sam Oelsner and the duo will serve as co-head coaches in 2009. Varley brings more than three decades of coaching to the table and when he looks at his co-coach Oelsner, he remembers what it felt like to be new to the profession.
Varley says, "I remember when I was her age just coming out, I thought I had the world by the tail knew everything and I went to a basketball clinic put on by Bobby Knight who was still at Army and as I walked out of that clinic I go, 'I don't know beans about this game, I better study up and find out what the game is really all about.'"
And that he did, Varley was so successful during his time at P.V. that when it was all said and done, the school named the gymnasium Varley Gym. Some of his future players are still trying to come to grips with that fact.
Varley says, "we had a camp we had young girls we had really 5th graders, 6th graders, 7th, 8th, and 9th graders and one of the girls came in, looked up there and saw, there's a picture of me in the gym. She looked at me and she said, 'I thought that guy died.' She thought it was a memorial gym obviously."
But its a new era and Varley is still alive, well, and is ready to coach again.
Varley says, "I want to see the passes, I want to see the cuts, I want to see the screens, I want to see everybody working towards a common goal."
And for the Vikings, back to the future, never looked so good!
