Longtime A-K Valley basketball coach Myers dies

The A-K Valley basketball community lost one its most respected coaches Tuesday.

Tom Myers, who had stints at Highlands, Valley, Burrell and Penn State New Kensington, died of multiple health complications at UPMC Presbyterian. He was 69.

Myers, known at Highlands for a slow-down style of play that often produced low-scoring games in the 1980s, went on to lead Valley to its only WPIAL basketball title in 1993, with star Tom Pipkins leading the way. Valley also was a PIAA runner-up. He amassed 330 wins at the high school level.

Family and friends were well aware of his deteriorating health.

“As he did when he coached basketball, he battled until late in the fourth quarter,” said Myers' cousin, Mike Phillips, his business partner and former assistant coach. “He was a fighter. He was as feisty as a coach as he was with life.”

A five-time Valley News Dispatch coach of the year, Myers began his coaching career at St. Margaret Mary grade school in Lower Burrell, where he posted 127 wins. After a short stint at Burrell, where the Bucs reached the WPIAL finals with him as an assistant in 1978-79, he landed at Highlands and coached the Golden Rams for nine seasons before coming to Valley, where he won 208 games.

After a short stint with Penn State New Kensington, Myers finished his high school coaching career with Burrell in 2006.

Myers, who helped prepare a number of assistants for head-coaching jobs, was inducted into the A-K Valley Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.

Bill Beckner Jr. is the local sports editor for the Valley News Dispatch edition of the Tribune-Review. Reach him at bbeckner@tribweb.com.