In a city as big as Philadelphia, with as robust of a pro sports culture as that city has, there are few collegiate sports figures that can capture the identity of the city. But for 60 years, Fran Dunphy was Philadelphia basketball.
On Thursday, in the midst of his 33rd season as a head coach in the city's illustrious and historic Big 5, La Salle announced that its head man would be retiring at the end of the campaign.
Dunphy, a native of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania right outside of Philadelphia, graduated from Malvern Prep in 1966 before attending La Salle, where he was coached by the legendary Tom Gola. He bounced between a few schools as an assistant, including heading back to La Salle for two different stints before getting his first head coaching gig at age 40 with the Penn Quakers in 1989.
In University City, Dunphy won the Ivy League Championship 10 times, including four undefeated seasons, leading some of the best teams in Penn's long history. From 1992-94 through 1994-95, the Quakers went 42-0 in the Ivy League, led by stars Matt Maloney, Jerome Allen, and Ira Bowman. In 1994, Dunphy led Penn to an upset win over Nebraska in the NCAA Tournament, which is still the last March Madness win for the program.
He's the all-time wins leader at Penn, with 310, and is one of the top all-time coaches in the Ivy League.
When John Chaney retired from Temple, Dunphy was the logical successor, taking over the Owls' program, and continuing the excellence that Chaney set as the standard. In 13 seasons as the head coach on North Broad, Dunphy made eight NCAA Tournaments, but his best season at Temple was cut short by one of his former assistants.
In the first round of the 2010 NCAA Tournament, fifth-seeded Temple lost to 12th-seeded Cornell, coached by Steve Donahue, part of Dunphy's massive coaching tree. Donahue, Matt Langel, Andy Toole, Fran O'Hanlon, and more all served as assistants under Dunphy, and went on to have successful head coaching careers. Basically everybody in Philadelphia basketball has some sort of influence from Dunphy or one of his assistants, and it has spread much further, into the rest of the northeast.
After 13 years at Temple, Dunphy retired for the first time, and named former assistant Aaron McKie the new head coach. In 2022, Dunphy returned to coach his alma mater, stabilizing the program into a new era of college basketball, and ushering in the new John Glaser Arena.
Even in retirement, Dunphy won't be able to stay away from Philly hoops, as he is staying on as a special assistant to the president at La Salle.
Dunphy is a member of the Penn Athletics, Philadelphia Big 5, and Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.
La Salle is not a particularly glamorous job, even as an A10 job in Philadelphia. It should be fascinating to see who the Explorers hire next month.