200 wins. Barely 10 seasons. David Six.

And here’s the stumper we didn’t know. The Hampton coach is recovering from a stroke.

Six wouldn’t like the word recovering. He’d prefer “recovered.” But given it happened June 27, we’re going to use the word.

Six told us the news just a few minutes after his Hampton team rallied to upset James Madison 72-65 on Tuesday. We were congratulating Six for 200 career victories — something to savor even more, he told us, given all he has been through in 2018.

Six was driving from his Hampton home to Johns Hopkins, where his wife, Angela, continues to receive treatments for polymyositis, an inflammatory disease that causes muscle weakness. He was about an hour outside of Baltimore when he felt heaviness in his right arm.

“I couldn’t touch the console,” he said.

“What’s wrong with your arm?” his wife asked.

“Nothing,” he responded, thinking it was just stiff from being in the car so long.

When he pulled into the Hopkins lot, he realized his balance was off. He tried to walk. He fell and got back up. He fell again.

He was taken to the ER. Along with a torn rotator cuff, Six was told he had suffered a stroke. A blood clot was right at the spot that affected balance.

“I just happened to be at the hospital,” he said. “That was God.”

Six remained at Hopkins for six weeks where he did acute rehab — boot camp rehab, he called it.

“Maybe you can go back to work in a year,” he was advised.

You probably have an idea of what Six, who’s led Hampton to six NCAA tournaments in the last eight seasons, said next.

“I’d rather be dead than not go back to work.”

Six re-learned how to write and how to walk. He couldn’t use his right side at all. He pulls up a pant leg to reveal a brace on his right leg. You’d never know it was there. His speech remains perfect.

Four months after that stroke, David Six looks terrific.

We’re right up against Thanksgiving. No surprise that it means a little more to Six this year. So does coaching, he said.

“It was a near-death experience,” he said. “You don’t see things the same. I’m not out on the sidelines going crazy anymore.”

We’ve got to interrupt the story for a moment here. Six wasn’t as visibly agitated on the bench on Tuesday night, even when the Lady Pirates came up empty on multiple possessions and let JMU build a 15-point lead. But don’t think he wasn’t engaged. Or displeased at times with how things were going. “You’ve got to see the ball to defend!” he barked.

But his kids love him. They buy in to a style of ball that’s rarely pretty, built around a frenzied, chaotic press that throws the smoothest of offensive units off balance.

“We practiced for the press all week,” Dukes coach Sean O’Regan said, looking at a stat sheet that showed 25 turnovers.

Six doesn’t use high fives or warm fuzzy tweets (you won’t find him on social media) to get his kids to buy in. He’s candid. He’s nothing if not down to earth. He gets his players to dig deep behind a persona that can come off as gruff at times, even if he promises he’s a little softer in light of recent events.  Just don’t tell redshirt junior Charlisa Jenkins that Six has mellowed.

She shoots you a wide-eyed look. “He’s still Coach Six.”

Jenkins, who scored 12 points to go with eight boards versus JMU, is a newcomer on this Hampton roster. So is freshman point guard Laren VanArsdale, who piled 29 on the Dukes. They know what Six is about. They knew it was serious when they were told not to text during his hospital stay. On Tuesday night, this one was for him.

Six says he’s a lucky guy and he’s not talking about wins and losses. “If I had been home, I probably would have died. I didn’t have any symptoms of a stroke. No slurred speech. No twisted-up face.”

Even when they told him he was having a stroke, he came back with “Get out of here!”

Angela and David Six got beds in the same room at Hopkins. Amazing story.

We didn’t know any of this when we told Six we were glad to see him.

“Good to be seen and not viewed,” he said.

Happy Thanksgiving, Coach