An era has ended at Warren Central.

For the past 14 years, Tim Riley has made the boys’ basketball program at WCHS one of the best in the state. On Monday, he stepped down to pursue “other opportunities.”

Western Kentucky announced Tuesday that Riley will become a member of the WKU women’s basketball staff this upcoming season.

“It’s been a great run for the last 14 years,” Riley said Tuesday morning. “To win eight regional championships and be associated with so many great kids, it’s something I’m very proud of.

“I’ll always miss being at Warren Central, I always will. But I’m looking at other opportunities right now and trying to do what’s best for my family. But I’ll always miss being here.”

Riley’s teams have become models for tenacious defense and quick-strike offenses. Yet his squads have always been sound in the fundamentals and relatively trouble-free off the court.

He said he had very few rules – to try your best and to do your best.

“If he showed you how to do something and you did it wrong, and then he told you to do it again – and you did it wrong again – there’s going to be some pushups,” former Warren Central standout George Fant said. “He meant a lot. He was like a father to me. He prepared me a lot, he helped through a lot of things, including my recruitment. I’m happy for him.”

The numbers don’t lie: two losing seasons since 1999, a 27-3 record in the Region 4 Tournament, eight region titles in nine years and an overall record of 388-235 and a 307-128 record at Warren Central.

“I don’t know why they hired me,” Riley quipped. “But really, (the success has come) because we’ve had talent. I mean we’ve been awfully fortunate to have a lot of good, talented basketball players walk through that door.”

Riley was hired in the fall of 1997 with a record of 81-107 at LaRue County and Caverna high schools at the time. But over the years he built a program that he said was founded on relationships.

“It’s a people thing,” he explained. “I found that out early on. It actually made coaching a lot easier. You can go out there and rip into a player and scream and shout if they understand you care about them. I remember one year at a regional final I looked up in the stands and there were nine seniors off a former team there. Another was serving in Iraq and the other lived in Atlanta, Georgia. That’s special.”

It’s those moments that Riley said he’ll cherish more than anything. That, and playing that one last game at Rupp Arena on the last Saturday of the season.

“In 2004 and 2005, when we won on Saturday morning, we went back to the hotel and there was nobody there but us,” he recalled. “That was probably the two most special moments you can have.”

Warren Central athletic director Todd Steward is faced with the unenviable task of finding Riley’s replacement.

“Well, the selfish part of me doesn’t want him to go,” Steward said. “But (Riley) has proven himself over time and, I think, is the best coach in the state. He deserves to move on and pursue whatever options may be out there for him.”

He added there’s no timetable to make a new hire, but that WCHS will move swiftly to put a new coach in place.

“This job will open up and I’m certain we’ll have plenty of interest for it,” Steward said. “It’s not something we want to rush into, but at the same time, with summer basketball and summer camps and things like that starting up, we start fielding applications and go from there. It’ll be a tough spot to replace, and really, there’s no replacing a Tim Riley.”

Riley added he won’t be shadowing the program in the future, and actually plans to distance himself from it.

“I don’t want to be some sort of godfather figure over there,” he said. “If they come and ask me about (potential candidates) I’ll certainly give my opinion. But I’ve got a new career and new responsibilities to worry about now.”