City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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At the end of the high school season, with another Catholic League and Pennsylvania state championship under his belt, Chris McNesby took some time to reflect.

A father of three, McNesby thought maybe it was time to step away from basketball for a while. But he wanted to process those feelings and give it some time before he made any decisions. Two months later, he still felt the same way.

McNesby stepped down as Roman Catholic’s head basketball coach, informing his team Friday morning of his decision. McNesby has been the Cahillites’ head coach for the last eight years, taking over after Dennis Seddon stepped down in 2008 following a 22-year run that saw him win 10 Catholic League championships and more than 500 wins at the North Broad St. institution.

He mentioned his family as his biggest reason for leaving the position.

“After the season, I kind of had feelings about (stepping away), and I wanted to give myself a month or two to make sure those feelings were still there. After a long year and a grind I wanted to see if I felt the same way, and I did, McNesby told CoBL over the phone Friday morning.

“When I first started coaching, I was just married and had no kids, now it’s three kids: (Allie (9), Julia (6) and Patrick (4)). I talked to a ton of coaches and they talked about how they missed a lot of their children’s things growing up, and I wanted to be there.”

Though Neumann-Goretti won the first six PCL titles during McNesby’s tenure, he guided Roman to back-to-back league and state championships in 2015 and 2016, the first two PIAA titles in the program’s history.

In his eight years as Roman’s head coach, McNesby compiled a record of 168-55 (.753), including a 90-16 (.849) mark in the Catholic League.

Whoever takes over at Roman Catholic will inherit a roster that loses a tremendous group of seniors, including the Penn State-bound trio of Tony Carr, Lamar Stevens and Nazeer Bostick as well as 6-7 forward Paul Newman, who will attend Brown after a prep year.

Projected back are rising seniors D’Andre Vilmar and Daekwon Davis, as well as high-potential 6-7 sophomore Mikeal Jones, who already has a Penn State offer under his belt.

“I think the fact on our roster we had six or seven seniors, it almost felt like I’m graduating with them, we’re all going out together,” McNesby said. “For the younger guys, I feel horrible and hopefully I made an impact on them that this isn’t quite an ending, but we have a friendship for life.”

McNesby, who played at Roman and East Stroudsburg, said he has not ruled out a return to coaching in the future. But for the foreseeable future, he’s going to enjoy some newfound downtime between November and March.

”It will be unbelievably strange,” he said. “I was an assistant at Roman for three years and a head coach for eight. So that’s 11 winters that were always jammed. Maybe now I’ll be able to go on a trip -- go visit the guys at Penn State, see Paul (Newman) at Brown, see TreVaughn (Wilkerson) at Hartford. I’m excited to get to do those things that I really hadn’t had a chance to do.”

McNesby leaves open one of the most coveted high school jobs in the state as Roman starts its search to fill the position.

“There are expectations to win every year because it is Roman,” McNesby said. “And that’s the fun of it, too, trying to win in our league. I think anyone taking over will have a blast competing in the Catholic League, which I think is one of the best leagues in the country.”