YAKIMA – Early this recently wrapped-up season, with his Davis basketball team having just recorded the first of its two victories at the SunDome Shootout, Pirates coach Eli Juarez was asked if this might be the year he hangs it up.

He figured there was a 70-80% chance that this would be the final season, a 7-1 start to the season, perhaps, causing him to hedge on retirement.

Brenda Juarez, the coach’s wife of 41 years who could be seen at most games patrolling the baselines watching and chronicling the contest through her camera lens, wasn’t leaving wiggle room.

Like many a team that faced his trapping defense, the coach didn’t stand a chance.

After 20 seasons helming the Pirates, racking up 313 victories, 11 conference championships and winning the school’s second state title in 2012, Juarez is retiring from coaching. He stepped away from teaching last spring.

Juarez won the conference coach of the year 11 times while at Davis, and was inducted into the WIBCA Hall of Fame in the summer of 2021.

“I was so happy that Brenda was a basketball player and her understanding of what a coach goes through and what a player goes through,” Juarez said. “With my retirement it’s time to pay back for a lot of nights and days that I wasn’t there. It’s time for me to spend the rest of my life paying it back.”

Juarez’s Hall of Fame career always has been grounded in family. The third of seven children to Eliseo and Rosa Juarez, the Wapato native made four stops in his coaching career. After pumping life into Dayton’s program, he took over at Wenatchee and led the Panthers to the Tacoma Dome and the state basketball tournament.

Then, after a couple years at his alma mater, he returned to the Big Nine, and closer to much of his family, including his parents.

It often gave the coach a ready-made rooting section, a boisterous bunch that belied Juarez’s stoic sideline demeanor.

They were there in force each of the 10 times he guided the Pirates to the Tacoma Dome, and again when Davis white-knuckled its way past Woodinville in a opening-round contest two weeks ago at Davis Gym.

“Family is so important and those are some of the values I try to pass on to my players.” said Juarez, who shared a strong, humble personality and name with his late father. “That upbringing I had and the lessons we’ve learned with my father and him believing, ‘You have to be better than I am,’ is something that is so unselfish.”

Accolades and victories never were Juarez’s first concern. Years ago, a few of his siblings contacted the Herald-Republic wondering how many career wins he had.

Wouldn’t the coach himself be a better source for that information? Nope. He didn’t know, and even had to be told when he was nearing his 500th victory.

He joined that exclusive club of fewer than 30 members last winter.

“I probably look at it more as trying to advance the player into being just a person that is respectful of the community, respectful of self and respectful of the game.” he said. “That’s probably more important than my wins, in my book, anyway.’”

Understandably, the 2012 championship, led by 4A player of the year David Trimble and future NFL star Cooper Kupp, is one that stands out.

“It is extremely difficult to get and you get a feeling … it’s almost a feeling you can’t describe unless you’ve been there,” Juarez said.

Two starters on that team — LeVonte Allen and Ray Navarro — and Nikhil Lizotte, a key reserve as a freshman, have become coaches themselves.

Allen was voted the SCAC coach of the year this winter and led the Naches Valley girls to a sixth-place finish in their first state berth in 18 years, while Navarro won the CWAC’s version of the same award the season before. Lizotte just finished his third year coaching the Eisenhower boys.

“He has a special way of getting all his players to buy into what he’s preaching,” Lizotte said. “He’s a mellow guy, and win or lose he’s always the same and it really bleeds into his program.”

Davis athletic director Bob Stanley said a search for the new Pirates coach would start next week.

“Over all the years, I don’t think there was a team that didn’t meet or exceed expectations,” Stanley said. “There was a high expectation for all those involved and a family atmosphere."