As the buzzer sounded Tuesday night in the West Fork gym a win over Green Forest wasn't the only victory. The win signified the 500th career victory for Coach David Ferrell.
"I guess it means I'm getting old," joked Coach Ferrell after the game. "I feel fortunate and lucky. I've had a lot of good players and coached at a school that really supports athletes."
Coach Ferrell won all but 40 of his victories as the West Fork Head Coach. He started his coaching career at Gravette, coached for a year at Lincoln, and then took a two year break from coaching to run sports camps all across Northwest Arkansas.
A close friend, and a familiar name to Arkansas natives, Gus Malzhan convinced Ferrell to return to coaching. Malzhan was working at Shiloh Christian at the time and told Ferrell about the basketball job opening.
"He's a great guy," said Ferrell of Malzhan. "He got me back into coaching at Shiloh. I came back to here in 1999 and have been here ever since. This is where I'm from, I've lived here my whole life. I was born and raised here, I went to high school here, my kids graduated from here, it's just a special place."
Coach Ferrell's 500th victory was quite the accomplishment, but according to the coach he has many more victories ahead of him.