By Alicia Couch Payne
Buford is celebrating the 800th career win for not one but two of their coaches. Boys basketball head coach Eddie Martin and girls head basketball coach Gene Durden both got their 800th career win recently. Putting this into perspective, their teams play 24 regular season games. If a coach won every single regular season game at a 24 game per season average, it would take a coach just over 33 seasons to reach this achievement.
Coach Eddie Martin got his 800th career win on January 22, 2019, when the varsity Buford Wolves basketball team beat the Johnson Knights with a score of 75-18. “At the time of this achievement, the Wolves’ record was 87-21, a winning percentage of 0.80. Throughout his legendary career, Coach Martin has accumulated 800 wins, 248 losses, and a winning percentage of 0.76335 percent,” states Tony Wolfe, Buford Athletic Director.
Before coming to Buford in the fall of 2015, Martin spent 33 years coaching at Brookwood, Norcross, and Greater Atlanta Christian schools. Martin’s teams have netted eight state championships, as well as one state-runner-up finish and 17 region championships. He has had 62 of his former players go on to play basketball in college and five of those have even made it to the NBA level. An impressive resume for sure.
Not to be outdone, Buford girls head basketball coach Gene Durden received his 800th career win on January 30, 2019, when the Buford Lady Wolves varsity team beat Loganville 48-30. Coach Durden has been at Buford for 14 seasons and has built a first-class program that has produced a record of 367 wins and just 70 losses. That is a winning percentage of 0.83981. Under Durden’s guidance, the Buford Lady Wolves have won six state championships including the previous two seasons of 2017 and 2018.
Durden led the girls’ basketball program at Dade County High School in Trenton, Georgia. While there he compiled a record of 333-88, which is a 0.79 winning percentage. He also coached boys and girls basketball at The Brookwood School in Thomasville, Georgia. He left there with a record of 100 wins and 56 losses. Coach Durden has achieved an overall career record of 800 wins, 214 losses, and a winning percentage of 0.78895 percent.
Coach Martin and Coach Durden will be honored for their accomplishments on February 1, 2019, in between the Varsity Girls and Varsity Boys games at the Buford Arena. The ceremony should begin at approximately 8:00 p.m.
A huge congratulations to Coach Eddie Martin and Coach Gene Durden for this extraordinary achievement!
