LOVELAND, Ohio — Loveland High School girls basketball coach Darnell Parker seemed to always have a megawatt smile and a positive outlook on life.
"His enthusiasm and optimism were contagious," Loveland City School District Superintendent Mike Broadwater said. "He leaves a legacy of leadership and grace in our community."
On Sunday, Parkerdied at the age of 44 after he was diagnosed with colon and liver cancer Oct. 25, 2020.
"Some people have smiles that just touch the soul and that was his smile," Broadwater said. "You could tell it was genuine. He genuinely loved what he was doing and he was passionate about what he was doing."
Parker is survived by his children Alexis and Madison, his wife, Samantha, who is expecting their first child, and Darnell's mother, Nina.
"Coach Parker was just electric," Loveland High School principal Adam Reed said. "He could light a room up. His players loved playing for him. His passion for basketball was contagious. "You just felt better when you saw him and had a conversation with him."
In addition to being with family and friends, Parker's passion was coaching high school basketball. He spent five seasons at Loveland.
"I spent the better part of almost 20-plus years in coaching at different levels of encouraging young people and kids to persevere, push through and control what you can control," Parker told WCPO in November 2020.
"And that's one of the things I cannot control -- the fact that I have cancer. It's happened. It's here. Now what I can control is how I attack my treatments, how my attitude is on the days that I'm feeling really well. And once this is all over how I can affect others that are going to go through my similar situation."
Parker was the Eastern Cincinnati Conference coach of the year in 2020-21 and 2019-20. He was named the Greater Cincinnati Basketball Hall of Fame Ohio girls co-coach of the year in 2020-21.
"I didn't know him that well personally but what was most impressive about his coaching is that his kids seemed to enjoy playing for him," Mason girls basketball coach Rob Matula said.
"They always played hard but more impressive is that they seemed to enjoy the process he and his staff were implementing. His kids were bought in."
Parker, who had a 93-31 record at Loveland, led the Tigers to conference titles in 2020-21 and 2019-20. He also previously coached the Clark Montessori High School and Clermont Northeastern boys basketball teams prior to Loveland.
Parker played high school basketball at Findlay in northwest Ohio. He was coached by former Ohio High School Athletic Association executive director Jerry Snodgrass in the 1990s.
Snodgrass visited Parker in the hospital last week. The two had prior conversations about why Parker believed he could make a difference in the lives of student-athletes at Loveland. He was very successful in that endeavor.
"His personality was so infectious," Snodgrass said. "He was so positive."
Parker's positive outlook and selfless nature was evident a few years ago at the state basketball tournament at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus.
That's when Parker left Snodgrass a coach of the year plaque he received when he was at Clark Montessori.
Snodgrass said Parker had two major goals early in his coaching career. He fulfilled the first which was to have his father, the late Darnell Parker Sr., coach on the bench with him.
"The second was if I was every lucky enough to be named coach of the year to dedicate that to you," Parker wrote in a letter to Snodgrass. "'So here's my plaque."
Snodgrass started to cry when he read the letter.
"That's him, that's him," Snodgrass said Monday afternoon as his voice trailed off.
Milford athletic director Aaron Zupka knew Parker's personality well.
Zupka, a former Clark Montessori athletic director, has several memories of Parker including how he transformed the Cincinnati Public Schools program.
Parker hosted a breakfast club when he brought food for players during a gym session prior to school. Parker's energy and smile were infectious to student-athletes and others at school.
"He was a great leader of young men," Zupka said. "He was a great mentor."
Cincinnati Public Schools athletics manager Josh Hardin said Parker will be missed by the basketball and Cincinnati community but his contributions and lessons will continue.
"Darnell Parker was a fierce competitor that led with love and passion for the kids," Hardin said. "There was never a second that he wasn't trying to improve himself and his staff as coaches/mentors and his student-athletes as basketball players and leaders."
Several Greater Cincinnati coaches and former players offered condolences on Twitter Monday afternoon.
"Coach Darnell Parker always had the biggest smile, a positive outlook, and an infectious laugh," said Loveland High School assistant principal Brian Conatser, the school's former athletic director.
"He loved his basketball family and he shined on the sidelines as their leader. We are all better people having been in his presence and felt his enthusiasm for life."
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