The AAU basketball coach who built his legacy by investing in Wichita kids
The strangest part of Tyrone Berry’s basketball story is not that so many people in Wichita know his name.
It is that so many know his work even though he has never had the title.
Berry has spent more than 30 years coaching, teaching, mentoring and challenging Wichita kids in gyms, schools, churches and summer tournaments across the city. He has worked with future pros and middle school beginners, star players and end-of-the-bench kids, honor-roll students and kids who needed someone to help pull them toward better choices.
He has been a middle school head coach. He has been a high school assistant. He has been a mentor in Wichita schools, a minister in the community and one of the city’s most trusted AAU voices.
What he has never been is a high school head basketball coach.
That missing line on his resume has become one of the more curious details in Wichita basketball circles because Berry is still spoken of like one of the city’s best coaches.
That is what Karl Brown, the Southeast boys basketball coach who brought Berry onto his staff as an assistant this past season, has come to admire the most.
“He doesn’t care about the applause, he doesn’t care about the recognition,” Brown said. “He truly just wants to do good.”
This summer gave Berry’s work another reason to be noticed.
The 13-under Team PE 34 group he coaches — a Wichita-based AAU team affiliated with Perry Ellis and River City Hoops — traveled to Rock Hill, S.C., for the Adidas Jr. 3SSB Nationals and finished ninth in a field of more than 50 teams in the 13U Silver division.
For Berry, the national finish was meaningful. But the larger story was not really about a 3-1 weekend.
It was about what the weekend revealed.
Wichita still has young basketball talent worth investing in. Berry is still one of the people trusted to develop it. And after three decades of pouring into kids across the city, the weekend offered another reminder of why his work matters.
“The highlight for me was coming from Wichita and being able to go out and compete some of the top powerhouse teams all over the country,” Berry said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would win enough games to be able to get that kind of recognition. It was amazing.”
Team PE 34 won both pool-play games against teams from Tennessee and Virginia, lost its first bracket game, then bounced back with a 21-point consolation win over a team from Florida. Berry was assisted by Mario Gunter and the team featured Dravin Andrews, Kadryan Denson, Jonathan Eschrich, Aidan Espaldon, Asceston Harris, Valencio Hart, A.J. Henderson, Draiden Hopewell, Dornell Oliver Jr. and Jaxyn Small.
Berry has coached that core group for three years, starting with them as fifth graders. Ask him about the team now and he does not begin with the wins, the Adidas circuit or the national finish.
He is more likely to brag first about how many of them are on the honor roll.
That has always been the foundation for Berry. Basketball is the hook. The real purpose is helping young people build the habits, grades, discipline and confidence that can keep them on a path toward college.
“Working with young people is the gift that God has given me,” Berry said. “I enjoy touching young people’s lives and teaching them, not just about basketball, but about life for when they become adults. A lot of basketball is about character building: knowing how to make good decisions, being responsible, knowing how to manage your emotions.”
Berry, 55, works in USD 259 as an advocate and mentor through the Future Ready Advocate Mentor and Better Academics and Social Excellence programs, where he helps support at-risk students and young men of color from middle school into high school.
His approach is direct, demanding and rooted in tough love. He expects effort. He expects accountability. He expects young people to care about school.
He also makes sure they know someone is in their corner.
Brown said much of Berry’s most important work happens away from the scoreboard. Brown has seen Berry make sure a kid had food, clothes or a reason to care about a report card. He has seen him turn grades into a challenge and basketball into a reward for doing things the right way.
“Tyrone has a heart of gold,” Brown said. “He will do anything for any one of his kids. He will literally struggle just to make sure he helps someone else.”
Berry is not soft with players. He corrects loudly. He demands effort. He still believes there is value in being told the truth.
But the message lands differently because players know where it comes from. He does not coach hard to show them up. He coaches hard because he has invested in them.
Whether Berry is coaching the best player on the team or the last player off the bench, he has a way of making both feel seen. He holds both to the same standard. That is why he can push without losing them.
“Tyrone has forgotten more basketball than I know and a lot of people know,” Brown said. “He’s still very old-school in his approach, but he’s smart enough to adapt with the times as well. He’s the perfect mix of everything you would want in a coach.”
That blend of old-school standards and new-school adaptability is one of the reasons Van Williams wanted Berry involved when River City Hoops began pushing Team PE 34 back into the Wichita basketball scene.
Williams founded River City Hoops as a nonprofit organization designed to create more opportunities for Wichita players. When he restarted his focus on the program after a hiatus, he wanted local players to have access to strong coaching and national opportunities without feeling like they had to leave town to find them.
He also knew the name attached to the program came with responsibility. Team PE 34 is a nod to Ellis, the former Heights standout who agreed to put his name behind the program. If Ellis’ name is on the jersey, Williams said, the team has to represent more than basketball.
Williams had known of Berry for decades, dating back to when Williams was a sports writer for The Eagle in the early 1990s. When they sat down over coffee to discuss the possibility of Berry joining the program, Williams said the fit became obvious.
Both wanted the same thing: a program that put kids first.
“I think that’s why he’s stayed in the game so long,” Williams said. “He’s always absorbing new information and evolving.”
That matters in today’s AAU landscape, where players can switch teams quickly and programs often compete for talent, attention and exposure. Berry has managed to keep his core group together, which is increasingly rare in youth basketball.
“I like that these kids are really competitive and gritty and they work hard,” Berry said. “They play together. They’re still developing and understanding the game, but their basketball IQ is pretty high. They’re just a good group of boys to work with.”
The Perry Ellis affiliation helped Team PE 34 gain access to the Adidas-sponsored circuit, where the team qualified for nationals by stacking up wins earlier in the summer. Berry hopes the top-10 finish in Rock Hill can open more doors, meaning more tournaments, camps and exposure for Wichita players.
That philosophy goes back to the 1990s when Berry poured himself into the Hoop It Up league at the former MEFSEC, now known as the Lynette Woodard Center.
At its peak, the league had more than 2,000 kids and 200 teams, turning the building into one of Wichita’s true basketball hubs. A who’s who of the city’s hoops talent came through the league, making it a gathering place for players, coaches and families across Wichita.
Brown was one of those kids.
He remembers first meeting Berry when he was 8 years old and playing in the Hoop It Up league. The impression stuck. Years later, Brown jokes that Berry has been around Wichita basketball for so long that there are Southeast players whose parents — and maybe even grandparents — were coached by Berry at some point.
Whenever Brown goes somewhere in Wichita with Berry, he knows the routine. Someone will stop them. Someone will recognize Berry. Someone will have a story.
It might be a former player. It might be a parent. It might be someone from a church event. It might be someone who knew Berry from a school, a gym or a summer tournament years ago.
Berry’s reach is not limited to basketball.
A deeply religious man, he has served as a minister and spoken at numerous churches throughout Wichita. He has helped organize church events, preached, mentored and tried to guide young people through faith as much as through sport. His belief in God is not separate from his coaching. It is part of the same calling.
“What’s special to me is that you get to see these young people do something positive with their lives,” Berry said. “Watching them build camaraderie and stay out of trouble, that’s the best part of it for me.”
That calling did not begin in Wichita. Berry grew up in Kansas City and graduated from Schlagle High School. He moved to Wichita to attend WSU and never left.
Over the last three decades, Wichita became his home.
He has been a middle school head coach at Hamilton, Robinson and Stucky. He has been an assistant at East. He is now an assistant at Southeast under Brown. He has coached some of the best talent to come through the city, including Korleone Young, a future NBA lottery pick; Adrian Griffin, another future NBA player; and Javin Tindall, one of Wichita’s most memorable guards from that era.
He has traveled the country with Wichita players, testing them against some of the best youth teams in America. He still loves winning. He is too competitive to pretend otherwise.
But ask Berry what has stayed with him and he will often talk about the moments between games: the restaurant meals, the hotel laughter, the long rides and the kids who experienced a plane ride for the first time because basketball took them somewhere they had never been.
“I just love the game and love working with young people and love teaching them the game of basketball,” Berry said. “I consider myself lucky.”
For all the respect Berry has earned across Wichita basketball, there is still one opportunity that has never come his way.
“I can’t believe he hasn’t got a head high school job yet,” Williams said.
Berry has wanted that opportunity. He has applied, interviewed and been a finalist a handful of times. But the missing title has never defined him.
“If it doesn’t work out, I’m more than happy to keep doing this,” Berry said with a laugh.
That laugh says a lot.
Berry has been chasing impact much longer than he has been chasing a title. If a job comes, he will take it. If it does not, he will still be in a gym somewhere, still coaching, still mentoring, still pushing kids toward grades and discipline and college scholarships, still telling them what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear.
Youth basketball has changed around him. More programs have popped up. Competition has intensified. The fight for players, tournaments and exposure has sometimes created division in a city that Berry believes is still capable of producing greatness.
“I want to see that unity again, that collaboration,” Berry said. “Because I know Wichita can produce national teams and national players. These kids in Wichita can really play basketball. I want to see Wichita get that recognition, but we have to come together and start working together and not be adversarial.”
Team PE 34 gave him a glimpse of what that can look like.
A Wichita team, built with Wichita kids, coached by a longtime Wichita basketball fixture, wearing a name tied to one of the city’s greatest players, traveled halfway across the country and finished among the best in its division on a national stage.
For the kids, it was a basketball highlight.
For Berry, it was proof that the work still matters.
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