Beilue: Ex-Panhandle High coach wins state title 5 days after wife's death

Darla Slover told her husband Greg that if he took the girls basketball job in Tatum, N.M., she wanted a mid-court hug if the Coyotes won a state title.

As a young schoolgirl at Springlake-Earth, it made an impression to see that the high school girls team won the Texas 1A state championship in 1968 at old Gregory Gym in Austin. When Greg guided the 1992 Panhandle High girls to the Class 2A state title, Erwin Center security and distance kept Darla from immediately jumping into her husband's arms.

But if that rare opportunity arose again, Darla - who never missed one of her husband's games - demanded that on-court embrace.

"If you were to describe a coach's wife," Greg said, "that would be her."

Darla Dear and Greg Slover were high school sweethearts at Springlake-Earth and married in 1974 when they were 20.

In 1982, they settled in Panhandle for the next 29 years. Together, they raised three athletic sons.

Darla was a second-grade teacher that entire time, teaching wave after wave of the town's 7-year-olds.

Greg was head girls coach for 16 years and boys coach for eight years when he was also high school principal.

Slover was one of the best in the area.

For the girls, there were two trips to the state tournament, including the 1992 title, and seven regional tournament berths. The boys at one time had a 42-game district winning streak.

"He was the best coach I ever had," said Goldthwaite girls head basketball and cross country coach Angie Hermesmeyer - an all-state guard on the 1992 Panhandle team and a standout player at the University of Texas. "Coach Slover had the knack of making you want to run through a wall for him."

The Slovers retired in 2011. As some educators do, Slover liked the idea of "double-dipping," earning retirement money from Texas and getting a salary with an out-of-state school. They were able to get jobs at Tatum, a three-hour drive southwest of Amarillo on Highway 380.

Darla had health issues most of her life - an early round of cancer six months after marriage, then Hodgkin's disease, and breast cancer. That was a financial burden.

"We had been playing from behind financially our whole married life," Greg said. "Moving to Tatum was a blessing. It was the only time in our married life where we weren't paying hospital bills."

Darla was able to teach her familiar second grade. Greg started as an elementary school P.E. teacher, then high school principal two years ago, and finally agreed to take on the vacant head coaching position of the girls basketball team this past season.

But that state title hug from Darla seemed remote. Only one starter for the Coyotes returned, and Slover's impressions from watching them in the summer were subdued.

"But I knew they would work hard and that they would improve," he said.

This season was going great - just one loss - but Darla was not. Scar tissue from long-ago radiation had damaged her heart and lungs for years. On Feb. 17, she had surgery at Baptist St. Anthony's Hospital to replace a leaky aortic valve.

There were some good days, but mostly tough ones, in post-op. It was the hardest thing Slover said he's ever done. His wife was in critical care in Amarillo, and his team was three hours away. A sway of emotion, attention and concentration played hourly tug-of-war with him.

For the first week, he stayed at the hospital, missing practice and one game. For the next two weeks, his daily routine was spend the night with Darla's sister, Karen Daniel, in Amarillo, stay at the hospital until noon, drive 180 miles to Tatum for workouts or games, and return to Amarillo to kiss Darla goodnight.

On March 6, one day before the playoffs, it seemed Darla was improving.

Then Daniel called him at practice to say Darla had slipped dramatically. As he raced to Amarillo, a doctor called to say they could not bring her back this time. Darla Kay Slover had died.

As grieving family and friends gathered in Amarillo, one of many questions was asked: Who would coach Tatum's playoff game the next day? The answer: Darla's husband.

"Initially, I wasn't going to coach," Greg said, "but my sons said, 'Dad, you know Mom would have wanted you to do this.' And she would have."

Slover coached the next night, an 80-35 win over Tse' Yi' Gai. On Monday, March 10, Darla's funeral service was at River Church in Panhandle. This group of basketball girls long ago were entwined with Slover. They were in this together, supported by the twin towns, Tatum and Panhandle.

"He is like a father figure to us," guard Karina Cardenas said. "He is more than a coach."

The team bused from Tatum to Panhandle. They went to the funeral and graveside service. Afterward, they worked out in Panhandle's old gym. With a quarterfinal game in the 1A state tournament the next day, they left for Albuquerque. Slover would follow the next morning.

"How many teams," Slover said, "go to a funeral on the way to play in the state tournament? Their emotions were in this as well as mine. Going through it together strengthened me."

In Albuquerque, Slover coached Tatum to a 56-46 quarterfinal win over Dora and a 54-46 semifinal win over Logan. On Saturday, in the championship game against Cliff, Tatum was down 40-32 to start the fourth quarter.

"I told the girls before the game that whatever happened that they would not fall below or above what I already thought of them," Slover said. "I don't know if God influences games one way or another, but I know he had a big part."

It wasn't necessarily fate or destiny over the last eight minutes, but a full-court press and Cardenas' 3-pointer. With 10 seconds left, Cardenas' trey gave the Coyotes a 50-48 lead.

It was Tatum's first state title in 26 years, but it was much more than that.

Greg knows it should have been Darla in his arms at the Pit on Saturday, fulfilling a longtime wish she never got to do. But in her fresh absence were other arms and necks, coach and young girls sharing a tight embrace and sticky tears.

It was the sweet ending of a hard and difficult journey that tested them all.

Jon Mark Beilue is an Amarillo Globe-News columnist. He can be reached at jon.beilue@amarillo

.com or 806-345-3318. His blog and vlog appear on amarillo.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jonmark beilue.