When the 2022-23 basketball season ended for the boys and girls teams at Bowsher High School, it spelled the end of an era for two longtime fixtures in the City League.
Two relatively nomadic coaches who combined to spend 67 years working with young athletes.
Joe Guerrero, 69, who served 40 total seasons as a head coach at five different City League schools, quipped that he is stepping away “because I didn’t want to coach when I was 70 years old. There aren’t many guys coaching at 70, so I figured it might be a good time.”
As for Darrell Dorn, 51, who spent 27 total seasons coaching either as a head or assistant coach at both the boys and girls programs at Woodward, Scott, and Bowsher, his exit from the bench comes with family ties.
“My son [Darrell, Jr.] is going to graduate from Bowsher and my daughter [Mikayla] will be enrolling at Southview,” Dorn said. “She's going to be playing three sports — volleyball, basketball, and track. I had to free up my schedule, because I do not want to miss anything that she is doing.
“This was a good time, with my son going to college. He played soccer at Bowsher and, with me being assistant athletic director there, I was able to watch him. There’s no way I’m going to miss any of her sporting events. It was time for me to come out of this thing and start this new chapter.”
The combined wealth of experience — both as coaches and mentors of teen-aged athletes — will create a void within Toledo Public Schools and the City League.
‘I loved competing’
Guerrero, who grew up in East Toledo, was a basketball and baseball player at Waite High School, graduating in 1971. He went on to pitch college baseball while earning his bachelor’s degree from Ohio Northern University and later pitched professionally for four years in the Mexican League and one season in the low minors in the Carolina League.
When that run as an athlete concluded, Guerrero wanted to transition into two things he felt compelled to do — working with kids and coaching sports.
“After I got done playing and I realized that was over, I still wanted to stay in sports,” Guerrero said. “The way you did it was go to college, graduate, and then get into coaching. It was because I had played sports all my life up until that point that I wanted to stay in it.
“I like working with kids, and teaching special-ed opens your eyes that a lot of kids need extra help, and I enjoyed doing that. That opened my eyes to the purpose of being a teacher.”
His first teaching job was with TPS teaching special education at Jones Junior High, beginning a teaching career that continues to this day. His first coaching job was as Libbey High School’s varsity baseball coach (three seasons) beginning in the late 1970s.
From 1987-94 he was head boys basketball coach at Waite, producing the best season (19-4 record) in school history in 1990-91. In 1994, he began a 15-year tenure as head boys coach at Clay, which was then in the Great Lakes League but joined the City League in 2003. His 1994-95 Eagles were GLL co-champions.
In 2009, Guerrero began his first stint (five seasons) as Bowsher’s head coach, with his 2013-14 team finishing 24-3. That team reached the D-I regionals and ranks No. 16 all-time in Ohio prep history for points (2,261, 83.7 per game) in a season and No. 22 in made 3-pointers in the season (235). Guerrero was named Ohio’s D-I co-coach of the year in 2014.
Guerrero became head coach at Start for the next two seasons, before returning to Bowsher for the past seven seasons. His 2017 City League champion Bowsher squad finished 21-5 and as D-I district runners-up.
“I loved sports, and I loved competing,” Guerrero said. “The wins and losses were always secondary. I was trying to help kids get better in life so that they could be successful after high school.”
Guerrero (410-368 career record) had no hesitation in naming his top player.
“Craig Thames was No. 1,” Guerrero said of the talented guard who later became the No. 2 career scorer at the University of Toledo. “On that 1990-91 team we had four guys who were probably average, talent-wise, but they worked their butts off. And, we had Craig, and he was just amazing.”
As for a top team, again, no deliberation: “That was our 2013-14 Bowsher team. They had the best chemistry of any team I ever coached, and we ended up 24-3. It was chemistry more than anything with those guys.”
Guerrero admitted he will miss coaching.
“It’s probably going to hit me when the season starts, when we should be practicing,” he said. “Then I’ll realize I’m done. And, when the games start, I know I’ll miss it.”
‘I know I've made an impression’
Dorn, a 1989 graduate of the former DeVilbiss High School, earned second team All-City basketball honors as a senior. He went on the play two years at the junior college level at the former Jordan College in Flint, Mich., and then two years at Lemoyne-Owen College in Memphis while earning a bachelor's degree in social work.
He started out in TPS as a building sub from 1996 to 2000 before moving to Harbor Behavioral Health the next 19 years. He now works as a community liaison for RFS Behavioral Health and serves as assistant athletic director at Bowsher.
“What pulled me into coaching was actually something accidental,” Dorn said. “I had just graduated [college] and came back to see my high school coach, Kevin Rupp. He asked me if I had any interest in coaching. I said, ‘No coach, I never really thought about it.’
“He said, ‘Dorn, when you played for me, you were instrumental with what the team was doing, with scouting reports and film breakdown. And, you can relate to the kids. I think you should get into coaching.’ He said that [head coach] Paul Brzozka was looking for a freshman coach at Woodward.
“I said, ‘Coach, I’ll get back to you on that.’ For me, that was the end of the conversation. Then, a couple days later I get a call from Paul Brzozka, who said he heard from Kevin Rupp that I was interested in coaching. So, I said, let me see what this is like.”
Dorn immediately took to coaching basketball.
“I wanted to give back to kids, but I was just going to do it through teaching at that time,” he said. “I got that freshman job, and then it just took off. I was able to relate to the kids.
“I just wanted to be a tool for the kids, through sports, where I could help them. Playing basketball helped me with so many avenues of growing up, and I wanted to share that with kids.”
Dorn’s nomadic trail began with seven years as a Woodward boys assistant and was followed by one year (2002-03) as the Woodward girls head coach, then the next two as the Polar Bears’ boys head coach. In 2005-06 he became Scott's girls head coach, guiding the Bulldogs to a City League runner-up finish.
Next came Dorn’s only year away from coaching in TPS, as an associate women's head coach at Tallahassee (Fla.) Community College in 2006-07. He returned to Toledo the next year, spent two seasons as Woodward's head boys coach, then the next as Woodward's girls head coach.
In 2010-11 he was back as Scott's head girls coach for three seasons, then a boys assistant at Scott in 2016-17 and a boys assistant at Bowsher from 2017 to 2019. His final post was as Bowsher's girls head coach the past four seasons. His 2021-22 Blue Racers were CL runners-up, and four times Dorn was named the CL’s coach of the year.
“I always joke with Joe [Guererro], because I’m known as the Larry Brown in the City with all these different coaching jobs,” Dorn said. “But, actually, Joe breaks my record. He’s coached at five high schools. I’ve only been at four.”
Dorn’s reward comes more in the relationships he’s built than in championships won.
At 6-foot-6 and 390 pounds, Dorn might appear to be an imposing figure to those who don’t know him. But, most who have met him learn that the opposite is true, and that Dorn is more of a gentle giant.
“That’s the real me,” he said. “I'm a people person. I love people. I think some people look at me and think I’m fierce-looking or intimidating. But, I’m really a nice guy, and I enjoy life.
“I’m in the business of serving people — talking to the principals, the staff, the kids. I really love people. I cherish all of those relationships.”
Sustaining these ties is a reward for Dorn, whose wife of 21 years, Althea, is a counselor at Bowsher.
“I get phone calls from former players when they’re getting married or buying a house or trying to get a job,” he said. “I’ve always told all of my ‘sons and daughters,’ which is what I call them instead of players, that ‘I’ll always be here for you. I’m only a phone call away. If I can help, please let me know.’
“I know I’ve made an impression on their lives if they call me about certain things in their lives. That's what it’s all about.”
First Published March 6, 2023, 9:44 p.m.
