Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Radford High School boys basketball coach Rick Cormany has coached in 860-plus games with 635 wins including his second straight 1A title last month in Richmond. He credits good assistants and a group of great kids.
“It’s not just me. I have great coaches and have been able to coach some good players during that time, especially in the last two years,” he said.
This is his third state crown at Radford and for the effort, he is this year’s All-county/All-city coach of the year—his second straight honor. He was also named this year’s conference, West region and 1A state coach of the year.
His coaching career has taken a long path to travel to Radford, where he has been for 17 years. He plans for it to be his last landing spot.
Cormany was also the head coach at Rocky Gap (90 wins) in Bland County and at Grayson High School (74 wins), and was an assistant at Radford University where he attended college. Growing up in Wytheville, he played for Pat Burns who is in his second stint at that school and has been a regular opponent in the playoffs for his former player.
“It’s tough for me to play him,” Cormany said. But it didn’t seem to bother him in taking this year’s region and state trophy from his mentor.
At Radford, Cormany has won 16 of 17 regular season Three Rivers District titles and five regional championships.
At Grayson, his team advanced to the regional playoffs three of the five years, and at Rocky Gap, his team advanced to the regionals four of the five years winning the regular season Mt. Empire District title three times.
When asked how much longer he will coach, Cormany said he doesn’t really know. Of course, he has two sons that are in the Radford system. His oldest played on the jayvee squad this past year, while the youngest is in the seventh grade.
“I don’t know about hanging around to coach them, but we will see,” he said last week.
Next season, Radford will move up a classification to the 2A ranks, so they won’t be seeing George Wythe on a regular basis, but Cormany thinks next year’s schedule will be very competitive.
“I am excited about who we were able to schedule. Of course, we will have to play everyone in the Three Rivers District and that will now include Alleghany and Carroll. So, it shouldn’t change our pace,” he said.
Of course some bad news for those in the 2A classification, Radford returns four starters and eight of 10 players that saw time on the court.
