Sept. 8, 2009
ATLANTA – Darryl LaBarrie, who played and later served on the basketball staff at Georgia Tech, has accepted the open position assistant basketball coach on the Yellow Jackets’ staff, head coach Paul Hewitt announced Tuesday.
LaBarrie, 30, spent the past two seasons as an assistant coach at East Carolina, working primarily with the Pirates’ perimeter players during the season while also serving as the program’s recruiting coordinator. Under LaBarrie’s coaching, the Pirates produced the top two 3-point shooting seasons in school history, and ranked first or second in Conference USA in that category in his two seasons. During the 2008-09 season the Pirates made a school-record 261 triples, breaking the record established a year earlier.
He replaces Charlton Young, who became the head coach at Georgia Southern last May.
“I’m excited to have Darryl back at Georgia Tech,” said Hewitt. “As a Tech graduate, he gives our program someone who knows very well the challenges a student-athlete at Tech faces, both as a student and as a basketball player. He has developed into a fine basketball coach, technically and as a recruiter.”
A 2001 graduate of Georgia Tech, LaBarrie spent the 2006-07 season as an assistant coach at Campbell University. Prior to joining the Fighting’ Camels’ staff, he served as a coach with the highly regarded Atlanta Celtics AAU program. He also worked as a regional NBA scout for Marty Blake’s Court Report as well as serving as assistant coach at Stone Mountain (Ga.) High School.
While pursuing his master’s degree in sports administration from Georgia State, which he received in 2005, LaBarrie spent two years as a graduate assistant at Tech. He worked one year in general athletics administration (2003-04), then the following campaign with the men’s basketball program (2004-05).
As a graduate assistant on Hewitt’s staff, LaBarrie was involved in many facets of the operation of the program, including coordinating on-campus recruiting visits, supervising the student manager staff, and assisting with team travel, equipment orders and practice preparation. He also assisted in the monitoring of team academics and community outreach as well as pre-and post-season conditioning, player development and game preparation.
LaBarrie earned three letters at Georgia Tech, playing two years under former head coach Bobby Cremins, and one for Hewitt. He helped lead the Yellow Jackets to the 2001 NCAA Tournament and received his B.S. in management that year. He began his collegiate career at Florida A&M, where he earned Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference All-Rookie Team honors as a freshman before transferring to Tech.
A native of Decatur, Ga., LaBarrie was named first-team all-state and DeKalb County Player-of-the-Year as a senior when he led Tucker High School to a state title.
LaBarrie and his wife, Aisha, are the parents of two daughters, Sydney Ayele and Kai Marie.
