Former GHS basketball coach Lonnie Gaylor to be inducted into Hall of Fame

Former Graham High School basketball coach Lonnie Gaylor will be inducted into the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame. The induction will be at 6 p.m. on May 21, at the El Tropicana Hotel in San Antonio. 

Gaylor had a long career playing and coaching basketball. He graduated from Jacksonville (TX) High School and went on to play at Jacksonville College. From there, he played basketball at Stephen F. Austin State University. He attained his Bachelors and Masters degrees at Stephen F. Austin.

While at Graham, Gaylor’s teams went undefeated in the regular season twice. Graham went 32-0 in 1983-84 under Gaylor and they went 31-0 in the 1994-95 regular season. The 1996 Steers team played for the state championship. During his last four seasons at Graham the Steers went 40-0 in district play. 

Gaylor has been a head coach for 34 seasons and has attained an overall record of 705-374. He has coached in Nacogdoches, Marlin, Graham and Waxahachie. He has also been named coach of the year numerous times.

Gaylor enjoyed the time he spent in Graham.

“Graham was a great place to live and raise a family,” he said. “In Basketball, we had good players and good junior high and high school assistant coaches.”

He also coached girls golf at Graham. Gaylor said that he was very fortunate to start out with such a strong group of young players.

“The first 3 years I was fortunate to start out with a group of really good players and young men that laid the foundation of 16 years of some good basketball teams,” Gaylor said.

Gaylor’s entire career has revolved around working with youth in his communities. He has organized sports carnivals for children, Special Olympics pep rallies and banquets, TAKS pep rallies, and started reading programs by his athletes in the elementary schools. He has taught youth Sunday school classes, worked with vacation bible schools and Fellowship of Christian Athlete huddle groups.

Gaylor has won a lot of games as a high school coach. However, seeing his players grow has been the highest honor.

“This honor is special not because of the wins, but the opportunity to see young guys grow into successful young men,” Gaylor said. 

Gaylor and his wife Myra have two children. His son, Brent, is the varsity boys basketball coach at Lipan High School and has served as director of the TABC. His son also played on Gaylor’s state finals’ team. 

The other inductees for the 2016 TABC Hall of Fame class include: Judy Bealsey (Hawley High School), Andre Bouttee (Beaumont Hebert), Roy Garcia, (Mission), Carl Owens (Harlingen), Cathy Self-Morgan (Duncanville), Wayne Tipton, (Gruver) and Skip Townsend (Argyle).