Friday night was a special night at the Le Mars Community Gym when the Le Mars boys beat Sioux City West by a 74-65 final score. The win was head coach Dave Irwin’s 299th career win as the head coach of Le Mars boys’ basketball making him the winningest coach in the over 100-year history of the program.
Irwin has been coaching Le Mars basketball for two decades and says when he got the job, he never imagined this becoming a reality.
Irwin spent the early part of his coaching career with stints at Sioux City North and Cherokee, but it was an opportunity to coach under Barry Borchers and Cliff Collins that started a passion for coaching.
Anyone who knew of Coach Irwin’s family background knew that his path to coaching was well laid out for him.
Irwin says that his upbringing around coaches did not just instill him with great coaching traits. He says it also instilled him with great life values.
Those values have become vital to Irwin’s coaching. He says that he uses his coaching platform to help shape young men into being great individuals in everything they do.
On the basketball side of things, Irwin has been able to have some impressive success. During his time at Le Mars, he has coached eight different all-state players (four of them multi-time), four conference championships (all in the Lakes), and a state runner-up in 2015. The runner-up finish was the first for Le Mars since the former winningest coach in program history, Eugene Carey, coached the 1946 team to a runner-up finish. The common denominator for all this, according to Irwin, has been the great players he’s been able to coach.
Irwin says the support he’s received from everyone associated with Le Mars basketball is what has kept him going for these last 20 seasons.
Eugene Carey was the previous all-time winningest coach winning 298 games from 1926 to 1954. Many know the Carey name as the name of the old competition gym at Le Mars High School. So, the question becomes, is there any movement for an “Irwin Gym” in the future? Well, Irwin says that has not been on his mind at all.
Coach Irwin’s record at Le Mars is now 299-160. His overall coaching record including his time at Sioux City North and Cherokee is 350-226.
You can listen to KLEM’s full interview with Dave Irwin by clicking below:
