‘Added it up’
Pocahontas girls basketball coach nabs 700th win
Sitting on the floor at one of his last games as a senior at Evening Shade High School, Harlan Davis was inspired to go into coaching.
“I was listening to my coach, and he said, ‘Hopefully, what I have taught you here will carry over to life,’” said Davis, the head girls basketball coach at Pocahontas. “That was the night when I decided I didn’t want this to end. I wanted to go to school, get my degree and go into coaching.”
Now, more than 40 years later, Davis earned his 700th career win for high school girls varsity basketball on Feb. 23.
“I don’t keep up with a running total,” Davis said. “I’ve been in it long enough now that people will ask, and I just kind of added it up. I didn’t actually know [I was close to 700] until about two-thirds through the season.
“It’s special for me, personally, because I had a chance to be around good kids. I had really good kids. That’s what is special to me.”
Davis is in his ninth year at Pocahontas and was at Highland High School for 18 years prior to that. He has won two state championships — one at Highland in 2002 and one with Pocahontas in 2017.
“I’ve been blessed,” Davis said. “I’ve been around a lot of good kids — skilled kids and hardworking kids.
“My wife has been by my side for my coaching career the entire time, and in the early stages, she was keeping the score book or stats. She has enabled my coaching career.
“I’ve been very blessed to be around a lot of good school people as well.”
Davis and his wife, Rita, have been married since 1986. He said they got married at the end of his first year of coaching, and after a weekend in Little Rock for their honeymoon, they jumped right into coaching with a tournament on Monday.
The two have three kids, including Cannon, who is an assistant football coach at Pocahontas; an older daughter, Whitney, who is an elementary physical education teacher; and a younger daughter, Dylinna, who is a junior at Pocahontas and plays basketball for her father.
“I have been blessed to have so many opportunities in coaching,” Davis said.
Rebecca Rider was Davis’ assistant basketball coach at Highland for 14 years. She described Davis as a God-loving Christian man who has high morals and standards.
“He is a very motivational person who cares about the kids,” Rider said. “He has a great passion for the sport of basketball, and he is a student of the game.
“I learned a lot from Davis, including the fundamentals and the core of what it takes to be a good coach. … He has a good relationship with his athletes, and they respect him. He gets the most out of his players.”
Rider is now an assistant basketball coach and the head softball coach at Cedar Ridge High School.
“Any accomplishment in his career means a lot to him,” she said, “seeing all the long hours and perseverance pay off, but he is a man about his athletes and not his accomplishments. He is that humble.”
Ashley Harper was Davis’ assistant at Pocahontas until the 2019-2020 season, when she decided to be a stay-at-home mom to raise her two children. She knew Davis prior to them working together as she played basketball at Pocahontas and would face rival Highland.
“When he first got the job [at Pocahontas], I didn’t really know him that well, but I had played against him,” she said. “His coaching style is really similar to the ones I had in high school, and I knew he was a really good coach.
“He is very knowledgeable in the game and really pushes his kids. … Having him as a mentor was absolutely amazing. He is dedicated to those kids, and he treats them like his family. With Harlan, that is a friendship and a mentor that I will have for the rest of my life.”
Harper played basketball at Lyon College in Batesville under head coach Tracy Stewart-Lange.
“Harlan just goes above and beyond for his players,” Harper said. “I feel like he deserves the success he has had because he puts in so much work.”
Davis is originally from Evening Shade, about 25 miles north of Batesville. He went to Arkansas College (now Lyon College) in Batesville and was a physical education major. He returned to Evening Shade to coach basketball for nine years before making the move to Highland.
“It is really important to me that our basketball teams are a family because we spend so much time around each other,” Davis said. “My assistant and I try to convey to these young people to have faith in God and follow his plan.
“You might have lots of ups and downs in life, but you will end up with a lot more ups in life and more positives, and hardships will help push you through blessings.”
Davis said he can’t express enough the amount of blessings he has received through coaching.
“God has truly blessed me and my coaching career in so many ways,” he said.