He played on the softball circuit in the 1970’s and early 1980’s with many different people who would go on to become coaches. People like Don Edwards, Paul Niece, Marty Albertson, and others braved a snowy day recently to come to Sheridan and pay tribute to him. Another time, Sheridan put on a tribute for him, and a bunch of people who had played for him at Coffey came up to join.
He became head basketball coach of Coffey, Jameson, and later Worth County. As a coach, he always created a fun environment for his players to thrive in. “He was the best coach I ever had,” said Zach Allee, who played for him. In 2005-2006, his first year, his team got off to a bad start, but then got better as the season progressed. They came back from some big deficits to either win or make things interesting for the other team.
In 2006-2007, Worth County won 19 games, their most since the P.J. Sanders era in 1996. They made it to the District Finals in Class 2 and beat South Harrison in their gym for the first time since 1979. There were a lot of positive comments about their play that year from people from other schools.
They won another 16 games in 2007-2008 and came back from 25 points down to beat Hamilton for Courtwarming. It was one of Hamilton’s last losses in the Grand River Conference. It was Worth County’s biggest comeback since they erased a 28-point deficit against Hamilton in 1977.
Under Parman, Andrew Davidson became the all-time leading rebounder in Worth County boys basketball history, getting 800 career rebounds. His teams thrived in close games; over half of their wins in 2006-2007 were decided by ten or fewer points.
He ran the water system for Coffey and later Sheridan, keeping the system one of the cleanest in the area. Parman shot fireworks for the community every July 4th and sold them for a while. His antique store, Weekend’s, was a gathering place for the community, and brought in people from outside to trade goods. He had a club known as the “Dead Pecker’s Club,” complete with benches and even a fly repellent one time which was simply a plastic bag of water with two coins placed inside. The denizens swore it worked because the flies believed the coins were the eyes of a predator and stayed away.
His deadpan sense of humor will be missed. One time, he was umpiring a recreation league game in Maryville, and he would come over between innings and ask us what the score was. “What is it, 9-6,” he asked, when the score was actually 9-1 or 9-2. One of the girls playing for the team we were keeping score for freaked out, thinking the game was about to get out of hand. The player in question was Sarah Vollertson, who would go on to become one of the best Women’s Basketball post players Northwest Missouri State ever had.
For the last several years, David Parman battled cancer. He had his good days and his bad days, but until the last several months, you could never tell he had it unless he told you. He was a workaholic, always doing something, whether it was checking the water system or getting up in the middle of the night to do something at the antique store.
1 comment:
I had the privilege of having him in my Army Reserve Company for 26 years. I was his First Sergeant 13 of those years. Deployed with him to Iraq twice. We were all better Soldiers from having him with us. SFC David Parman is a true Patriot.
1SG Richard Rucker
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