by Jeremy Price
Darian DeVries is still new here. The first-year Indiana University men’s basketball coach has players who are entirely new here. Yet, DeVries has a simple description of his first six months in Bloomington.
“We’ve felt very comfortable,” he says.
It has certainly helped that DeVries’ family (wife Ashley, daughter Tatum, and son Tucker) completed the move into a new house before the school year started.
But perhaps as much as anything, the Aplington, Iowa, native is back in the Midwest. “People here are good, hardworking people—very genuine people,” he says. “It’s just a tremendous community to be a part of.”
DeVries, 50, grew up on a farm off a gravel road in a small town of 1,000 people. His high school class had 35 students until consolidation ahead of DeVries’ senior year, which pushed the class size over 60.
He was the oldest of five siblings, and the eldest quartet—Darian, brothers Jared and Dusty, and sister Jodi, competed in plenty of two-on-two battles. Youngest brother, Jay, joined later.
“As a family, when you’re in a small town, you have to do a lot together,” DeVries says. “For myself, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”
Jared and Dusty played football at the University of Iowa, Jared going on to 10 years with the Detroit Lions in the NFL. Jodi played volleyball at Iowa State University, Darian played basketball at the University of Northern Iowa, and Jay played football at Wartburg College.
Football was DeVries’ first love before he realized that at 160 pounds, it might be the wrong sport to pursue. But he was guided in basketball along the way—an early mentor being assistant basketball coach Speed Limburg during junior high.
Limburg had DeVries dribbling the basketball through the countryside, down a gravel road into town and back home. It was a relationship that carried into DeVries’ high school days when Aplington won Class 1A state championships in 1991 and 1992 under head coach Bill Dohrn.
“(Dohrn) was the one who kind of shaped the whole basketball landscape for me as a player, and eventually as a coach,” DeVries says.
As a coach, it’s not often that a team starts from scratch. DeVries’ son, Tucker, joined him at IU, so that was the easiest recruitment. From there, it was a matter of filling spots position by position. Since then, players and staff have been learning about each other and Bloomington with the guidance of assistant coach Drew Adams, a Bloomington High School South graduate.
“It’s great, because we have to figure it out together,” DeVries says. “There aren’t a lot of things where you already know how to do this, how to do that. So, we get to go figure it out. And there’s something to that.”
There was also something to an August trip to Puerto Rico in which Indiana won a trio of exhibition games.
“The guys got to go do some excursion-type activities together,” DeVries says. “We were able to see how they hang out and interact together, maybe even sometimes in an uncomfortable setting, whether they’re snorkeling or jet skiing or kayaking for the first time. I thought that experience was way more valuable than even the basketball side of it for that trip.”
Back home, gearing up for the season, DeVries is getting to know the value of IU fans, too.
“I love the passion our fans have, and very knowledgeable fans as well,” he says. “I think they really understand the game of basketball—and we all want to win.”
Interactions around town have been encouraging, providing DeVries a sense of familiarity. “You spend your whole life in the Midwest, so certainly being here’s a definite comfort level,” he says.
