Renowned local coach Starr returning to sidelines at BSH

ZACH JOACHIM Richmond Times-Dispatch

After a little more than 14 months of somewhat restless retirement, renowned local basketball coach Larry Starr is returning to the sidelines as the girls coach at Blessed Sacrament Huguenot.

“This is absolutely the last stop (of his career),” Starr, 63, said Wednesday night.

“For me, it was kind of the perfect scenario. It’s just a different type of challenge. So I’m really excited for it.”

Starr won four state championships during a 17-year career at Monacan High, where he compiled a 343-92 record. His Chiefs teams captured five regional championships while making 10 state tournament appearances. The state titles came in 2015, ‘16, ‘17 and ‘20.

Starr was named region coach of the year five times and state coach of the year thrice while molding AllMetro players of the year Jordan Hodges (2021), Megan Walker (2016, 2017) and Jasmine Young (2004, 2005).

But during the 2021-22 season, his last at Monacan, he experienced a handful of frightening moments regarding his health.

Starr had gained a lot of weight in the years leading up to that season, a reality exacerbated by the pandemic. On a few occasions during games, he got dizzy and had to sit down.

Those instances accelerated a decision to step away that he’d known was coming. But upon retiring, he and his wife, Carol, shifted heightened focus to their health, and Starr lost 65 pounds.

So this spring he considered applying for open jobs such as the girls teams at Mills Godwin and Glen Allen, or at Benedictine, as Starr has experience coaching boys and girls.

Then he got a call about the BSH job opening up. He’s got connections at the school in head of school Tracy Hamner and athletic director Chuck Thomas.

It’s relatively close to home, and he loves the Powhatan campus. Plus, his first head coaching job was as the boys coach at Amelia Academy, which is in the same conference as BSH.

So though just a couple weeks prior he had decided he was done coaching for good, Starr jumped at the opportunity.

He knows it’ll be a different challenge compared to his years at Monacan, with lots of BSH student-athletes playing multiple spots. That’s part of why it was the right fit at this stage of Starr’s career.