Davidson's remarkable 50-year coaching career ends

A legendary coaching career has come to an end.

Again.

Almost exactly 10 years ago we wrote of boys basketball coach Don Davidson's retirement after 33 years as a teacher at Aurora Christian and for 10 years before that at Yorkville.

The final paragraph in that article was a quote by the man, who in 1967 became a born-again Christian at age 22:

"I believe the Lord will provide for me something where I can use my spiritual gifts to serve Him. That's what I'm looking for."

Faster than you can say Davidson was a 1995 Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee, he found it.

He started the boys basketball program at Parkview Christian Academy in Yorkville, also serving as a Bible and history teacher and athletic director.

After three years as a middle-school program (eight boys from third- through eighth-grades his first year), for the past seven seasons Davidson led the Falcons varsity.

He'll continue as a Parkview Christian teacher, dean of students and athletic director - he's 74 years young - but is retiring as a head coach. That chapter came to a close Tuesday with a season-ending loss to Newark at the Class 1A Somonauk regional.

He is searching for his own successor.

"I'll get someone better than me, which shouldn't be too hard," said Davidson, humbly - and incorrectly.

"I have a lot of grandkids whose games I've got to see. And I didn't get to too many," said Davidson, who admitted to weariness from the coaching workload, and is not a big fan of summer basketball.

Combining the spouses and three children from his first marriage - his first wife, Minooka High School sweetheart Stephanie, passed away in 2007 - and those of his wife, Sigrid, Davidson counts 11 children and 20 grandchildren, with his first great-grandchild on the way courtesy of daughter Mindy, who lives outside of Indianapolis.

He's certainly a family man, though his oldest son, Matt, can testify this comes with an expectation of integrity and principle.

Though Matt was Aurora Christian's best player as a freshman in the 1985-86 season it didn't stop his father from kicking him off the team after some trouble in school. When the coach discovered the indiscretion he drove his son directly to a school administrator to offer an explanation and apology, and later had him do the same in front of the entire student body.

"Looking back on it, that was a pivotal moment in my life," said Matt Davidson, now superintendent of Timothy Christian Schools in Elmhurst. "My dad cares about me a little as a basketball player, but he cares about me a lot as a Christian young man."

On the court, especially over 31 years as Aurora Christian's head coach, Don Davidson did some amazing things.

His proudest achievement came in the gym that now bears his name, the Eagles' 80-game home winning streak between Feb. 9, 1988, and Feb. 11, 1997. In Illinois it's second only to Benet's 102-game home win streak.

"He's always had a good eye for adapting to a game plan that's going to achieve the best outcome for the team," Matt Davidson said.

The streak encompassed the 1990 season when Aurora Christian went 30-4 and finished fourth in Class A; and 1995, when the Eagles went 32-2 and were Class A runner-up to Normal-University High.

Another link between family and basketball, three of Aurora Christian's five top scorers are family members. Son Marc, a 1991 graduate who now coaches the powerful Blackhawk Christian program in Fort Wayne, Indiana, tops the list with 2,300 points and is Illinois' all-time leader in rebounds with 1,942. Matt is third with 1,597 points and Don's nephew, Joe Mann, is fifth with 1,491.

Anchored by 549 wins at Aurora Christian, Don Davidson retires with a lifetime mark of 721-465, ranking 17th in career victories.

Those who attend a party in his honor from 2-4 p.m. April 5 at Parkview Christian Academy, 202 E. Countryside Parkway in Yorkville, can congratulate him on that achievement.

But it wasn't his goal.

"It's always been my greatest desire to help boys become solid, Christian men," Davidson said. "Discipling boys, I think, has really been the goal of my life and using basketball is a tool in order to be able to do that."

A man of his character and, as Matt Davidson put it, his authenticity, will be missed in the game. He might even look back longingly.

"I told my wife, I've coached or played basketball for 66 consecutive years, so might I miss it a little bit," Don Davidson said.