Calling it a career
KARNS CITY — When Karen Davis took over the Union boys basketball program in 2003, it was a bit of a novelty.
Davis was one of only four women to coach a boys basketball team in Pennsylvania.
Now, she is thought to be the only one remaining.
But that will end after this season. Davis said the decision to step down as coach was made more than a year ago and nothing will change her mind.
“Oh yeah, this is it,” Davis said. “Nine years. I told the school board when I came back I'd give them nine years.”
Davis came back to coach her sons. The youngest of her three boys, Austin, is a senior this year.
“It's going to be real hard for her,” Austin said. “Any game she is at, she is cheering and trying to coach from the stands. I think she's going to have a tough time.”
She rarely had tough times while on the bench.
In 10 years as the girls basketball coach at the school, Davis posted a record of 203-67.
In her ninth season as the boys hoop coach, Davis is 134-83.
Last season, she led the Golden Knights to the PIAA playoffs for the first time since 1994.
Perhaps an even more telling sign of her success was the fact that Davis quickly was seen simply as a basketball coach, not as a woman coaching a boys' sport.
“Yeah, she's like a mom figure to everybody,” Austin said. “But when we're on the court, she's just our coach. She helps us in all the sports because she hates to lose and we take that mentality into everything we do.”
Davis isn't going to step completely out of the high school basketball world.
She said she plans on becoming an official.
“They can yell at me the other way,” Davis said.
Her team has known for nearly two years that this was going to be her last whirl around the Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference battlefield.
But Davis said that hasn't given her players extra motivation to succeed in her final season.
“This group I have here, these seniors, these varsity players, they just want to win,” Davis said. “They refuse to lose. They have so much heart and that's what it's all about.
“It's been fun,” Davis said. “I'm going to miss it, but it's been 29 years.”
