State champion Durango hires new boys basketball coach
Ron Riley will be the new boys basketball coach at Durango, the high school announced Wednesday.
The Trailblazers went 21-6 and won the Class 5A state title last season under interim coach Michael Lee following Chad Beeten’s resignation on Feb. 1.
In a letter obtained by the Review-Journal last month, Beeten said his resignation stemmed from the alleged racist mistreatment of his players.
A Las Vegas native, Riley was a standout player at Clark before playing college basketball at Arizona State. He helped lead the Sun Devils to a Sweet 16 appearance in 1995 and is No. 4 on the school’s all-time leading scoring list. Riley was drafted in the second round of the 1996 NBA draft by the Seattle SuperSonics.
Riley did not coach last year and has been a teacher at Durango since 2016. He last coached as an assistant with the University of Providence (Montana) from 2007-09.
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on Twitter.