From the Hendersonville Times-News:
Legendary coach Tom Pryor, the winningest high school girls basketball coach in the state, put up a legendary fight with Parkinson’s Disease for the past eight years. Late Friday night his long battle finally came to an end.
Surrounded by family members, he died at Elizabeth House at the age of 76.
Pryor’s coaching career spanned four decades, resulted in 702 wins and most of all, changed lives.
Always by his side during all those wins was his faithful wife, Marie, who was also with him until the end.
“I just want people to know how faithful mamma was to daddy,” Judy Justice, Pryor’s daughter, said Saturday morning. “She was always with him at every ballgame, videotaping all the games. They were like a team.”
And from the Asheville Citizen-Times HS Huddle blog:
Pryor retired from coaching in 2001. His career record was 702-244 and Pryor was inducted into the NCHSAA hall of fame in 2004.
North Henderson’s gym was named for Pryor in 2006. He frequently attended Knights games during the 2007-08 season when his grandson, Chris VanLandingham, averaged a Western North Carolina-record 32.5 points a game.