Starr

When Tyrone Area High School girls basketball coach Mike Whitling stepped down following the Lady Eagles’ loss to Forest Hills in the District 6 Class 4A playoffs, there was plenty of interest from coaches in a team with several talented underclassmen.

So much so that the man leading Tyrone next season has already won more than 400 high school games and four state championships.

The school hired Larry Starr, who led the Monacan High School girls basketball team to Virginia High School League state titles in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2020 and 10 state playoff appearances overall.

“We had several great candidates for this position. However, Coach Starr’s experience and success as a state championship winning coach really separated him from the others,” Tyrone athletic director Luke Rhoades said. “He has helped develop several very successful players over his career that have played at the high Division I level and even one who played in the WNBA.”

Starr coached Megan Walker, who was the top recruit in the nation and earned a full scholarship to UConn in 2017. But as Starr, now 66, got older, some things about the atmosphere he was coaching in started to get to him.

“When I was at Monacan, we had so much success,” Starr said. “In Chesterfield County, where I am from, there are 11 high schools. What ended up happening at the end of my career there was that public schools were recruiting left and right — which is supposed to be illegal — but they just did it. It was just like what’s going on in college. Players would play for this high school one day and the next week, day or year they would be at another high school. Me being old school, that kind of got old.”

After 17 years and a 343-92 record at Monacan, he stepped down to allow his assistant to secure the job.

“I was at three different games every night and really started to miss it,” Starr said. “Stepping out that year, I thought to myself that maybe I did it too early. I knew I wanted to look for a job but not compete against Monacan boys or girls or compete in the private girls sector. I took a job at Blessed Sacrament Huguenot, which only had 50 girls ninth through 12th, but I loved the kids and they worked hard for me.”

Starr helped Blessed Sacrament improve each of his three seasons there but started to discuss a move to State College with his wife, Carol, before last season.

“My grandson, my only grandchild, lives in State College with my daughter,” Starr said. “I have three daughters spread all around the place. My wife didn’t want to go back North, so it took us a couple years, but we’re both from Ohio. Once she made the decision, I told my athletic director at the beginning of the year it would be my last year.”

But Starr’s final year at Blessed Sacrament turned out to fuel his fire for the game once again.

“We had a starting lineup of two eighth graders, two sophomores and a junior,” Starr said. “I had another eighth grader and a freshman coming off the bench. These kids busted their butt, and we went 13-10 and won our first game at the buzzer in states. It really brought my love of coaching back.”

Starr sent out resumes to many State College-area schools.

“When Luke started talking to me, I got really excited,” Starr said. “I have watched them on film a lot. It’s a step up from the competition level at Blessed Sacrament, but it’s an easy step up for me. It’s not quite the level I was at with Monacan, but we were one of the top teams in the nation at one point. I’m excited.”

Tyrone went 16-7 and earned the No. 2 seed in the District 6 Class 4A playoffs this past season after adapting to life without star senior Alayna Woomer, who was injured early in the season.

Underclassmen like Lola Woomer, Brielle Parker and Raylee Woodring began to blossom as the season progressed.

“You have a lot of girls that are young and can play,” Starr said. “I got really excited when they offered it to me. With what is there, I’m really excited, because I think we can do really well with what I have watched on film.”

Still, Starr feels the fact Tyrone did not field a junior varsity team last year is a concern.

“There are only right now six returning players,” Starr said. “They didn’t have a junior varsity team last year. With the style I run, I need seven or eight. We have those six returners, and watching them on tape, they are all going to do great for me and play and play a lot.”

He’s planning on traveling to the school this week to talk to girls about his vision for the team.

“We have to build the program,” Starr said. “My plan is to go up there and try to convince some of these girls to go out. We need to have a junior varsity program, and I’m going up to meet the girls on Thursday all the way from sixth grade to 11th grade and hoping that I am able to start recruiting. They have 230 girls ninth through 12th, surely we should be able to get some more girls out.”