ABERDEEN – It may be two years away, but it’s two years too soon for everyone related to Aberdeen basketball. Longtime Aberdeen basketball coach, and native son, Roy Hazzle, told the Monroe Journal, that he’s hanging around for two more years.

“I’m entering my 23rd year as head boys basketball coach. I’m pretty much on my way out the door. I want to try to bring another state championship here. It’s within our reach if the young people just devote themselves to great attitudes and great work ethic.”

He brought the school’s first in 2007.

An Aberdeen graduate, his first day back home on the job was Halloween 1977. He wants his last day on the job to end in March 2011 back at Jackson’s Big House.

“My intention is to coach this year and next year and that’s it,” he said. “I know what’s best for me. I know what my mind is telling me. You know pretty much when it’s time to let it go. I’ve said it over and over and over, I don’t want to have any regrets when I walk away.”

If his intentions don’t steer him in a different direction, Hazzle will coach the final two years in a gym now named after him. In September, the school board approved the Aberdome to be renamed Roy Hazzle Gymnasium.

“I had a good time doing what I’ve done,” he said. “I’ve met a lot of people who’ve inspired me, a lot of people have touched me.

“That championship team stands out in my mind, but there was a measuring stick before that, kids that I didn’t get a chance to coach in high school.”

As seventh, eighth and ninth graders, Hazzle coached the 1984 team that became the first team to get to Jackson, a team he says set the measuring stick for all his teams.

A switch-hitting outfielder, Hazzle left a very likely professional baseball career behind in Oregon and arrived back home to help his mother. Back at his alma mater coaching seventh, eighth and ninth graders for 10 seasons, Hazzle went 5-21 his first full season with varsity in 1987 before turning it around with a 22-7 mark the following season. He was the interim head coach when James Trimble left during the 1986 season.

Now, he’s coaching the sons of players he coached more than two decades ago.

“We didn’t want to see that happen to Aberdeen basketball anymore,” he said of his debut, “to only win a handful of games. We just started getting better after that ‘84 team came through. It’s been great to be able to come back and give back to my home, my community, my school.

“My goal is to go. I don’t want it to be a surprise. I’ll go out gladly, with no regrets.”