Don Carey's legacy as a coach at Stayton High School will last beyond state championships

Not getting technical fouls was a point of pride for Don Carey.

There were times when the long-time Stayton High School boys basketball coach went entire games without standing up from the bench and was thanked by the referees after the game for his demeanor.

In his 28 years as a head basketball coach, Carey received two technical fouls, and one was when a referee misconstrued how he casually said, “Holy cow,” about something unrelated.

“His coaching style was such that you didn’t like that he won so much because he could beat you, but he was always a gentleman,” said Rich Moore, who coached against Carey as head coach at Santiam.

“He was pretty quiet on the bench, surprisingly. He wasn’t a screamer. He knew what he was doing.”

One of the winningest, most successful and longest lasting coaches in Oregon history died March 9 at the age of 94.

In his 38 years as a head coach at Stayton between 1960 and 1998, he guided the school’s boys basketball and golf teams to 11 state championships and 34 Capital Conference championships.

Carey is the No. 18 winningest high school boys basketball coach in Oregon, compiling a 486-166 record in 28 seasons from 1960 through 1987.

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He coaches the Eagles to AA state championships in 1971 and 1980, runner-up finishes in 1972 and 1981 and 14 Capital Conference championships.

Though Carey was best known as a basketball coach, his golf teams won state championships in 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1979, 1981 and 1982 and won 20 Capital Conference championships.

“Once you have success, that builds success,” said Jon Carey, Don’s son. “That’s true in both basketball and golf. Once he sort of got things going, that kind of got a little bit easier.”

Standing out among the Carey brothers

Don Carey was born Feb. 17, 1925 in Gates, the fourth of five brothers.

In the Carey family, the boys learned to play sports early.

“He and his brothers were the stars of everything,” Moore said. “They didn’t have football because they didn’t have enough players. They made up most of the basketball team at one time.”

In his senior year of basketball for Gates High School, Carey scored over half of his team’s points, and Gates knocked off league powers Stayton and Mill City.

And that was despite an enrollment of 21 students in the school.

In one game as a senior, he scored a league-record 32 points in a 53-27 win against Turner. Gates had so few players on its team, it played entire games with five players.

After graduating in 1943, Carey joined the Army Air Corps and went to bombardier school. He served in the military on B17s during World War II from 1943 to 1946.

“He was in the Pacific theater, but never saw any live action,” Jon Carey said. “He had only been in for a little while, and by the time he was ready to go, they dropped the atomic bomb.”

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After leaving the Army, Carey enrolled at Oregon State and played a year on the school’s JV basketball team, the same year his brother, Norm, played on Slats Gill’s first team to reach the NCAA Tournament.

Carey earned a degree in Business Administration with a minor in Forestry from Oregon State in 1950, but during his senior year, Stayton Grade School offered him a teaching job that allowed him to earn his teaching credential while working.

“At that time there was something like one percent of those who graduated ended up getting jobs because so many people enjoyed wildlife that it was just there weren’t so many of those jobs available,” said former student and long-time friend Jim Girod.

Carey started playing fastpitch softball prior in the seventh grade and continued playing for decades.

While teaching in Stayton, he joined Kelly Lumber Sales from Mill City and led that team to the state championship as a pitcher in 1953.

“One of Don’s claim to fame is that he scored the winning run in the championship softball game,” Moore said. “That was always a big pride for this area.”

Carey spent the first nine years of his teaching and coaching career at Stayton Grade School.

More than a coach and teacher

He was hired as a teacher by Stayton High School in 1959 and in 1960 and got the head boys basketball coaching position. He took on the boys golf job in 1966.

All three of Carey’s sons – Jon, Tom and Steve – played basketball and golf for their father at Stayton.

They were part of some of Stayton’s most successful programs and many of the state championships, but Carey continued to win state championships as a coach after they had graduated.

Carey developed a course about the outdoors at Stayton he titled Conservation.

The class quickly became one of the school’s most popular and included information for novices and experienced hunters

“It was anywhere from tree identification and basic forestry management techniques to how to field dress a deer,” Jon Carey said. “Game laws, hunter safety was woven into it. It was one of those that was particularly relevant. If you’re talking about a tree identification or hunter safety stuff, you’re speaking their language and our language.”

Though he was known for his work with athletes, Carey took similar mentoring roles with other students.

During lunch periods, groups of students would come into Carey’s office to eat, often a mix of students, not just athletes.

“He would take the side of the underdog and he would work with those types of kids that were down and out in that respect,” Moore said.

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Carey was an avid outdoorsman and loved to hunt and fish.

If someone went on one of Carey’s many hunts, they could forget many things, including his gun or ammunition and not draw his ire.

“But if you’re cooking chili and forget the crackers, you’re in deep doo doo,” said Girod, a long-time hunting partner.

When Carey retired as a counselor at Stayton in 1987, he retired from coaching basketball, but continued coaching golf until 1998.

“I just assumed he would coach forever,” Jon Carey said.

During the 16 years Jon Carey was the head coach of Western Oregon’s women’s basketball team, including winning the 1994 NAIA National Championship, Don Carey was a frequent visitor.

“He had all kinds of advice,” Jon Carey said. “He was much better at working with referees than I was.”

When his former students or players came through Stayton, they made a point to stop by his house in Stayton.

“And Helen, his wife, is just a real sweetie pie,” Girod said. “She’s real community minded. Works with the hospital. He couldn’t have found a better person to be married to.”

Carey is one of the most highly decorated coaches ever in the Willamette Valley.

He was named coach of the year three times in basketball, four times in golf, was named Stayton First Citizen in 1977, given the DNA Award by the Oregon Sports Awards in 1987 and named the NHSCA National Golf Coach of the Year in 1993.

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The basketball court at Stayton High School was named Don Carey Court 2003 and rededicated with a plaque being added in the foyer in 2015.

“Whatever success I had of course depends on the kids you get in to play for you,” Don Carey said in 2015. “I’ve been very fortunate in the Stayton area to have a bunch of good kids.”

bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com or Twitter.com/bpoehler