New Penn head coach Fran McCaffery has an overall record of 548-207, while taking four different programs to the NCAA Tournament. (Iowa Athletics)
With apologies to Thomas Wolfe, it appears you can go home again… even if it takes 42 years.
Former Iowa men’s basketball coach and 1982 Penn alum Fran McCaffery was named Penn’s new coach in a Penn Athletics announcement Thursday.
The hire will be a homecoming for McCaffery, who grew up in Northwest Philadelphia, attended La Salle College High School and played for the Quakers from 1979 to 1982.
“I am thrilled to bring Fran back to Penn and Philadelphia as our next head men’s basketball coach,” Penn director of athletics Alanna Wren said in the press release. “Fran has had success at every level of Division I and is passionate about restoring our program to glory. His energy and enthusiasm for leading young men was apparent throughout the process and he has proven to be committed to player development and relationship-building with his student-athletes throughout his storied career.”
We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. We covered Penn now because Steve Donahue knows what’s up:
YQ = Young Quaker, of course. Bob Weinhauer = forever.
For those who did not experience it, the 1979 Penn Final Four season is almost indescribable. It was a once in a lifetime moment that happened to last two weeks. As students, our time in Philly was indelibly shaped by the completely unexpected rise of the Red and Blue to national prominence. School spirit was at an all-time high, and people who otherwise knew and cared little about college basketball were swept up in the mania that those few weeks in March brought. USA Today ranks it as the greatest Final Four ever and it is still, 36 years later, one of the highest-rated in terms of television viewership. This is because it not only changed our lives, but it changed the panorama of college basketball in America forever.
The ‘78-79 campaign started out like most for the Quakers in Bob Weinhauer’s second year as head coach. The team had finished 20-8 in his rookie season and was well on its way to repeating as Ivy League champions. The Quakers deftly handled their nonconference schedule, losing only to Iowa in two overtimes and getting blown out by San Diego State, 110-86. Then in late January came the Georgetown game at the Palestra. It was a nationally televised contest, a rarity for an Ivy League school, on a freezing Saturday afternoon. (Let’s face it, the networks certainly weren’t going to give it Brown or Cornell). The Cathedral was packed. Georgetown was ranked 10th in the nation and featured All-American guard Eric “Sleepy” Floyd and forward Craig “Big Sky” Shelton. (They just don’t make nicknames like that anymore. Tony “Big Float” Hicks? Nah.)
