Coaches

Dave Darnall

Year Inducted: 1990

Category: Coaches

Schools / Organizations: Eureka College
Roseville High School
(Standord) Olympia High School
Momence High School/Gridley High School

Biography:  Dave Darnall spent 8 years as an Illinois high school boys’ coach before becoming the men’s basketball coach at Eureka College where he remained for 20 seasons. His high school teams went 122-80 with stops at (Stanford) Olympia High School, Gridley High School, Roseville High School, and Momence High School.  At Gridley, Roseville and Momence, his teams produced conference champions.  At Roseville, one of his teams went 25-4 to set the school’s win record.   That team was an IHSA District winner and conference champion.  In 20 seasons at Eureka College, Dave’s teams were 383-151, making him the winningest coach in program history.  In 1994, his Red Devils team won the NAIA II National Championship.  Overall, his teams won five Prairie College Conference titles and went to the  District 20 tournament play 13 times. Eureka also won the 1994 Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference title. 

After the 1994 season, Darnall was voted NAIA Division II National Coach of the Year, and he received Coach of the Year honors from NAIA College Sports Magazine and the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association.

Darnall was named Prairie College Conference Coach of the Year four times and was selected as the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association college coach of the Year four consecutive years through 1994. He was also selected Tri-County Male Coach of the Year in 1993 by the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame.  He is a member of the Eureka College Athletics, the Illinois State University,  the Greater Peoria Sports Halls of Fame.  In 2016, Eureka College dedicated the court of the newly-renovated Reagan Athletic Complex to Darnall.