BY GLEN MASON
CHESAPEAKE — It’s deeper than the game.
That is the mantra of Kempsville High School basketball coach Darren Sanderlin, who recently was honored at a surprise celebration of his 20th season as a basketball coach.
It was hosted by his wife, Deirdre Sanderlin, and the usually stoic Coach Sanderlin – or “D’Nice” – was surprised when he arrived on Saturday, April 30, at the Clarence Cuffee Community Center in Chesapeake.
His wife had lured him away from his basketball office at Kempsville under the pretense he would be speaking to a youth basketball league. Instead, he was greeted by family, friends and many of the people he has coached over the years – and they all erupted in applause.
Sanderlin was nicknamed D’Nice for his patented jump shot. His all-conference career included competition in the Central Intercollegiate Athletics Association when Norfolk State University was Division II, the semipro United States Basketball League and in summer leagues, including Rucker Park in New York, Baker and Sonny Hill in Philadelphia and Norfolk right here in Hampton Roads.
Sanderlin clearly was touched and overwhelmed when he tried to greet everyone from the podium at the community center, and he told those gathered there he loved them.
“I just want to thank all of you for being part of my life,” he said.
“If you knew D’Nice, you knew he would be a coach,” said Ace Custis, a former teammate with the Pennsylvania Valley Dogs and now an assistant coach at Virginia Tech. “When we were playing for Darryl Dawkins … Darren was the one drawing the Xs and Os during our timeouts. Coach Dawkins would look at what he drew up and just say, ‘Let’s go with it.’”
Darren Sanderlin helped elevate basketball in Hampton Roads, and he has a basketball legacy including his recent coaching at Kempsville and his many years at Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk. And many people who gathered together in Chesapeake for the celebration noted how he has helped people, touching lives beyond the game.
Sanderlin was the head coach at Booker T. Washington for 17 seasons, where he compiled a 228-183 record. He won his first state championship in 2006 four years after getting the job.
He has established his love for the game of basketball and its inherent life lessons at Kempsville.
“He’s going to push you as an athlete and a student,” said Omarion Barber, the Chiefs’ senior center. “He wants you to be great.”
“Coach Sanderlin wants you to be a better person first,” said power forward Nicholas Neil, a senior. “Coach will always push you to be your best through forms of love will push you to be the strongest.”
Brayden Luckenbill, a junior, added that Sanderlin “always brings energy no matter what and will always do what it takes to bring the best athlete out of you, but, more importantly, the best man out of each of us, and it means so much.”
© 2022 Pungo Publishing Co., LLC