Twenty years and more than 300 wins later, McGuire is still going strong. The longtime Braves coach earned his 300th win with a 52-27 victory at Benjamin Logan earlier this season.
“It just means I’ve been doing it a long time,” McGuire said. “I know that’s cliche and that’s what a lot of coaches say, but it’s a testament to all the guys I’ve had. I’ve had a lot of good guys.”
McGuire is the fifth boys basketball coach in Clark County history to win 300 or more games, joining longtime South coach Wayne Wiseman (441 wins), former North coach Don Henderson (368) and Kris Spriggs (329) and Bill Smith (325).
McGuire holds a career mark of 303-174 through Tuesday’s games. He began his coaching career at Bethel during the 2004-05 season.
“It started in ‘04 at Bethel and those guys bought into what a young coach was doing,” McGuire said. “These guys have bought in for the last 20 years. I’ve had some unbelievable players and unbelievable people to be a part of it. My assistant coaches have done a great job over the years and it’s a program accomplishment that I’m happy to be a part of. I’m just happy they don’t announce how many losses I have, however many that is.”
In his first season at Bethel, it took five games to earn his first career victory against Mississinawa Valley, McGuire said.
“It all started at Tri-County North (in the season opener) — we were up 3 and they hit a halfcourt bank shot to send it to overtime and we lost,” McGuire said.
The Bees finished 10-13 that season. A few months later, McGuire was hired as head coach at Shawnee, where he had previously served as an assistant coach under Dave Marshall.
Now in his 20th season as Shawnee head coach, the Braves have won four CBC Kenton Trail Division championships and have won 15 or more games 10 times under McGuire.
“He’s had great success,” said Shawnee athletic director Steve Tincher, who also served as an assistant coach to McGuire. “When he was hired here 20 years ago as a coach, I don’t think we envisioned that this would be the next 20 years, but what he’s done has exceeded everyone’s expectations with not just the wins, but how he runs the program. The kids are all better human beings coming out of his program.”
Credit: Staff photo by David Jablonski
Credit: Staff photo by David Jablonski
In 2012-13, the Braves set the school record for most wins in a season with 23. In 2021, the Braves won a district title and advanced to a D-III regional final game for the first time since 1977.
“We’ve had sectional wins, four conference titles, numerous players of the year and I’ve had great role kids who just kind of fulfilled those roles,” McGuire said. “There’s been some awesome times. Even some of the seasons where we haven’t had the success like some of the others, those are some teams I’ve been super proud of that have made the most of the season we’ve had. We were just trying to win the games we were supposed to win and try to steal a few that maybe we weren’t supposed to win. That’s maybe the biggest thing that I’ve enjoyed.”
Discipline and structure have been the key component in McGuire’s success, Tincher said.
“The little things are important (to McGuire),” Tincher said. “You take care of what you can take care of; you don’t worry about the things you can’t control. He teaches them to be a team, play together, share the ball — it’s never been an individual show here. We’ve had some players that could just take games over, but even those kids have turned into tremendous team players.”
The players also become better people, he said.
“He’s a better individual than he is a basketball coach,” Tincher said. “When you have that and you have someone as talented as he is coaching basketball and cares as much as he does, then you can have something special like we’ve had for the last 20 years and hopefully for the next 20 (years).”
CLARK COUNTY BOYS BASKETBALL
COACHING VICTORIES
Wayne Wiseman 441-176 (Oak Hill, Northwestern and South)
Don Henderson 368-274 (North)
Kris Spriggs 329-310 (Greenon, KR)
Bill Smith 325-220 (Greenon, KR, NW)
Chris McGuire 303-174 (Bethel, Shawnee)
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