Rock Island Today

One would think that Darren Bizarri would be used to milestones by now.

After all, the Black Hawk College men's basketball coach has had plenty of them in recent years. In 2013, the team notched its 100th victory under his leadership, according to www.bhc.edu.

Not long afterward, he passed Jack Carbee's 116 wins at the school to become the program's all-time winningest head coach.

Darren Bizarri

Still, Bizarri became reflective after getting his 150th win on Nov. 1 in the Braves' 50-44 win over Morton College in Cicero. He told Rock Island Today in an email interview that the win got him thinking about “the really good assistant coaches I've had and all of the players I've had at Black Hawk.”

“When I took over at Black Hawk, there had been some instability in the program, and I wanted to provide some stability," Bizarri said. "The 150 wins makes me feel like I've been able to do that, but more than anything, I remember the players that we've had come through the door that have gone on to earn their degrees and begun successful careers.”

According to his bio on www.bhc.edu, Bizarri took over the program on March 30, 2007, and went 20-12 in his first season. That was the first of four straight winning seasons for the Braves, the first time the program had achieved that.

All of that success came within the structure of junior-college basketball, which creates a great deal of turnover.

“You don't have players for four years," he said. "You have them for two at the most, so practically every year is a brand new team, a brand new slate to begin with. I like the challenge of determining on a yearly basis the strengths of a particular team and working to massaging our system to fit the strengths of a particular team.”

Bizarri has embraced coaching throughout the Quad Cities area. He spent six seasons as the sophomore boys coach at Moline High School – posting a 101-34 record in that span – was a varsity assistant at Rock Island Alleman for the 2000-01 season, and was in charge of the Westmer program for five seasons. He also has coached area AAU teams Quad City Elite and Illinois Gunners.

It all started while he was a freshman in college, and he was coaching fifth- and sixth-graders.

“I always had an interest in coaching,” Bizarri said. “I really respected and looked up to my coaches growing up. I wanted to have the impact on kids that they had on me.”

Bizarri said that what he likes best about basketball is the bonds the sport builds.

“Basketball is a sport that can be played and enjoyed by people of all backgrounds and gives people something in common -- love a sport, love of a team,” he said. “I love the teamwork that it instills and the hours you can spend working on your game by yourself to improve.”