King of the court

COACHING MILESTONE – Victory Christian Academy coach Joe Berry collected his 600th career against Temple Christian Academy Friday. Submitted photo

Joe Berry began his coaching career 44 years ago at Northwest ISD. After graduating college in 1976, he pursued his dream job – a passion that began as an athlete in his youth.

“Sports just really attracted me early. I loved sports growing up and I played everything. I was naturally good at most of them,” Berry said. “When I grew up, the kids were outside all of the time. My dad built me a sturdy basketball goal, and I spent most days after school outside shooting baskets until it was dark.”

Throughout his career, Berry has coached a number of sports, but his love for the game of basketball never faded away. Friday night, the legendary coach amassed his 600th career victory, leading the Victory Christian Academy Patriots to a 54-31 victory against Flower Mound’s Temple Christian Academy.

“Winning 600 games really makes me feel old,” Berry said. “There’s been a lot of good times in the past 44 years. I’m just very blessed to have had all the experiences with the teams I’ve had the privilege of coaching. It felt really good to get the win. It’s certainly a milestone, and I don’t want to make light of it. But it’s really all about the kids I get to coach every day.

“It was God’s calling for me to do this,” he continued. “I’ve retired from coaching three times now, and each time I thought I would find something else to do. But it kept weighing on me. After starting back coaching in private schools, I prayed and asked God to move me back closer to home, and he did. It’s been a total God thing.”

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Berry admitted his 44th season has been different than the preceding years.

“We check everyone’s temperature every morning, which has become a habit now,” Berry said. “Every morning when I get here, I get my scanner and start shooting everyone’s forehead. We haven’t really had any issues with the virus in our school, but it’s cut out eight games of our season already. We’re a young team, so we’ve missed out on the game experience for our players. It’s been very different, but we’ve been taking it one step at a time.”

Berry graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1976 with a degree in physical education and kinesiology. His coaching career began two years later at Northwest ISD.

“I think I helped coach every sport Northwest offered at that time in those two years,” Berry said. “I honestly got a little burnt out doing that.”

He then accepted a middle school teaching position at Decatur in 1980. He later landed an assistant coaching role with the Decatur Eagles basketball team under longtime coach Wayne Thompson.

In 1986, Berry switched benches and became the Lady Eagles coach for 15 seasons. He became the Decatur boys head coach in 2002 and held the job until he retired in 2007.

He came out of retirement a year later and became the coach at Southwest Christian School in Benbrook. He then served as the boys basketball coach at Harvest Christian Academy in Watauga for two seasons.

“I retired, but I actually took a year off and then ended up getting involved with coaching at a few private schools. I really liked that experience,” Berry said. “The drive to Benbrook and back almost killed me – it stretched a 10-hour day into 15 hours sometimes.”

Berry accepted a coaching position with Victory Christian Academy in Decatur in 2014. Now in his seventh year, he has served as the school’s athletic director and coached football, girls basketball and track and field.

“A coaching friend of mine whose wife taught at Victory told me I needed to apply because they were about to start high school sports programs,” Berry said.

“My first year here, I coached four basketball teams – two at the high school and two at the junior high. We drove over to Chico every day to practice. We’ve grown as a school since then, and we have a great coaching staff in place now.”

In a career that has spanned four decades, the coach said he’s learned a lot of life lessons from the game of basketball.

“Basketball is basically like life – you work hard and you get rewarded,” Berry said. “If you ever get to the point where you don’t enjoy it and you’re not working hard, you’re not going to be very successful. You’re going to get out of it what you put into it, whether you’re a coach or a player.

“Sometimes in life, the shots go in, and sometimes they don’t. Just like basketball and life, you can be playing well, and then face adversity all of a sudden and you can’t buy a bucket. But you’ve got to learn how to persevere until the buzzer goes off.”

Berry plans to continue coaching until he feels God tell him to hang up his whistle.

“I’ve retired three times. I’m going to end my career here. I just don’t feel like I’ll ever coach anywhere else,” Berry said. “I’m happy where I’m at, I’m healthy. As long as I’m healthy, this is what God wants me to do.”