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Newberry College head men’s basketball coach Dave Davis has announced the hiring of Larry Davis as assistant coach for the Wolves entering the 2015-16 season.
The 1990-91 South Carolina Mr. Basketball averaged 44 points per game as a senior at Denmark-Olar HS. Davis led his high school team to the state championship game as a junior going 30-1 and to a 22-4 record as senior. He holds several South Carolina high school scoring records, including the single season scoring record, the most 40-point games in a season with 20, the most 30-point games with 26 and the most made free throws in a season with 244.
He spent a year at prep school playing at Fork Union Military Academy playing for coach Fletcher Arritt on a team that went 28-2. Larry signed and played two seasons at the University of North Carolina for the legendary Dean Smith and was a part of the 1993 National Championship team. He was the first prep player from South Carolina to sign with the Tar Heels.
After two seasons Larry transferred back to his home state to play for South Carolina and coach Eddie Fogler, where he led the Gamecocks to their first SEC Championship of any kind in 1997 and a No. 4 national ranking. Larry was named All-SEC in both 1996 and 1997 and was also named All-American in 1997. He is one of two players in Gamecock history to score over 1,000 points in two seasons along with B.J. McKie.
Davis played professionally for seven seasons overseas in Spain, Belgium, Korea, Columbia, Israel, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. He played two seasons in Spain with Tony Smith, who played for Newberry head coach Dave Davis at Pfeiffer and is the all-time leading scorer in North Carolina college basketball history.
Larry Davis began his coaching career in Gastonia, N.C., at Highland Tech where he spent seven seasons as an assistant before landing his first head coaching job at Lewisville HS in Lewisville, S.C. Larry led the Lions to the Class A state championship in just two seasons. Larry spent the last two years as the head coach at Northwestern HS in Rock Hill, leading the Trojan boys to their best record in school history at 21-6 and never finished worse than second in the region.
“We are thrilled to add Larry Davis to our staff, he is a legend in this state but has let none of that go to his head,” said head coach Dave Davis. “He has been positively influenced by some of best coaches in this game and I would put recently retired coach Fletcher Arritt at Fork Union at the top of this list. Larry is hard-working, cares deeply about kids and will help us immediately both in coaching and in recruiting.”
Photo Courtesy Newberry Athletics
