City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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To meet Jim Fenerty was to know Jim Fenerty, and to know Jim Fenerty…. well, if you didn’t love Jim Fenerty, you sure as heck really liked the guy. 

There wasn’t a time he wasn’t in the mood to talk, to share a joke, to ask how you were doing, whether it was the middle of the offseason or minutes after suffering a major defeat (though there weren’t many of those). Whether you were one of his star players or a random kid wandering through his gym — or a local sports reporter looking for a story — you were fair game to get sucked into the Fenerty vortex, and came out better for it on the other side.

The affable, successful, and widely-beloved longtime Germantown Academy coach, Fenerty, 71, passed away suddenly earlier this week. The Philadelphia basketball community — this writer included —  will miss him greatly.

“He always saw the best in people,” his son, Jimmy Fenerty, said Thursday by phone. “No matter what happened, he was one of those people when you were doing well, you wouldn’t hear from him, he was watching you and he was proud of you, but when you needed him most he would pop up for you and be right there.”

More than just GA’s head boys hoops coach for 30 years, Fenerty served as the school’s athletics director for his final 22 years there, and as a college counselor after his coaching time had ended.

He also taught an elective history class, Civil Liberties, to a couple lucky classrooms full of students each year.

“There was a line out the door of people begging to get into it,” said his youngest daughter, Erin Fenerty. “I was lucky enough to get in and I had him as a teacher — that was the best experience I could ever have imagined.”

Married for 32 years to his wife, Mary, Jim Fenerty was a father to three children: their oldest daughter, Jessica Peterson, is married with a husband, Jawan, and their two-year-old son, Jalen; middle child Jimmy, engaged to be married to his fiancée Emily in October, is an assistant coach at Temple; Erin, the youngest, is a nurse at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

He battled health issues throughout the years: there was the diagnosis of a rare blood cancer in 2012, which eventually led to the heart attack that forced his retirement two years ago. 

On Tuesday, Jimmy Fenerty said, his dad spent the day blowing up and then playing in an outdoor pool for his grandson, enjoyed time with his family, had a long talk with his wife, and then went to sleep. He never woke up.

“There’s no better person on this Earth, I swear, and they don’t make them like him anymore, he really was one of a kind,” Erin Fenerty said. “He loved us more than anything, but he also loved his players, and he treated them as though they were his own, and he really felt that they were his own. And as much as he loved them, they loved him back, and that’s what kept him in the game for so long. 

“We are beyond heartbroken, but so unbelievably thankful for the community that we have, because of all he’s done.”

There will be a viewing on Monday, May 24 from 6-8 PM at Joseph A. Fluehr III Funeral Home (241 E. Butler Ave., New Britain, Pa.) and then on Tuesday, May 25 from 10-11:30 AM at St. Robert Bellarmine Church (856 Euclid Ave., Warrington, Pa., 18976), with a funeral mass at 11:30 AM and lunch to follow at Magerks in Horsham.

In lieu of flowers, the family recommends a donation in his memory be made to Coaches vs. Cancer.

Jim Fenerty was born March 24, 1950, the son of Bud and Mary Fenerty. The oldest of four siblings, he’s survived by his brother Jerry and sisters Peggy and Maureen. They were raised in the Olney section of Philadelphia; Fenerty went to Cardinal Dougherty, the now-closed Catholic school in East Oak Lane. From an early age, he learned to become the person who had such an impact on so many others during his lifetime.

“From birth his parents instilled that in him and in his three siblings: there’s no one better than you, no one below you, no one above you, you can take on whatever but you’ve still got to remember where you came from,” Erin said. “And that’s exactly what he did and that’s exactly how they raised him.”

(L to R) Jessica Peterson, Jim Fenerty, Erin Fenerty, Jimmy Fenerty, Emily Kellett, Mary Fenerty, with Jalen in front, celebrate Father's Day in 2020. (Photo courtesy the Fenerty family)

It wasn’t just the basketball players who benefitted from Fenerty’s kindness. One GA student recalled how she was once summoned to Fenerty’s office during her senior year, when she was having trouble deciding on a school; one of her top choices was her eventual alma mater, Penn State. 

Upon arrival at Fenerty’s office, she found him seated there along with PSU’s football coach James Franklin. “This guy’s going to tell you why to go there,” Fenerty said. 

“There’s a lot of coaches, and I’m guilty of this, who just focus on athletics,” Jimmy Fenerty said. “He was pumped, he would call me about kids who I didn’t know who they are, he’d be ‘hey, so-and-so just got into Tulane,’ or ‘hey, this guy is a really great kid,’ it was always ‘great kid,’ he never said anything bad about any kid. He was just so happy for everybody.”

And then, oh yeah, there was the success he found as a coach.

The Patriots’ hardwood boss from 1989-2019, Fenerty won 17 Inter-Academic League championships, more league titles than anyone in the history of the Inter-Ac — maybe the most successful coach in area high school history, considering those league titles were more than any coach from the Philadelphia Catholic League or Philadelphia Public League. 

According to Philly hoops historian Ted Silary, Fenerty was 565-240 (.701) in his GA career, including 208-82 (.717) in the Inter-Ac. He won another 61 games at Egan, bringing his career total to 626 wins, rarified air in Philadelphia high school hoops. He also led GA to a Pennsylvania State Independent School (PAISAA) championship, in 2013.

Always humble, Fenerty loved to say that it was his players who made him a good coach, and not the other way around. “I might have to coach this year,” he joked in 2015, with his team coming off three straight Inter-Ac championships but graduating two all-league seniors in Tim Guers and Sam Lindgren; the Patriots won it again the following year anyways, then split the title in 2017, Fenerty’s last championship.

More than just pile up wins, he also produced collegiate players. There were more than a handful of Division I products, including Alvin Williams (Villanova), Matt Walsh (Florida), Nick Lindner (Lafayette), Cameron Ayers (Bucknell), Devon Goodman (Penn) and more; plenty others played at the D-II and D-III level. 

“I know I’m a dinosaur, because I know the way high school basketball goes right now,” Jim Fenerty said in 2016. “I love the idea that the majority of my guys started in lower school and middle school at GA, and they stuck with us. And if they work hard and do what we ask them to do, they’re going to get their opportunity to play. I love that. I’ll be there at 9 o’clock tomorrow running the little kids’ program...to me, that’s why I got into coaching and teaching, and I love when those guys do well.”

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Clockwise from back left: Jessica Peterson, Jawan Peterson, Jimmy Fenerty, Jim Fenerty, Erin Fenerty and Mary Fenerty. (Photo courtesy Fenerty family)

To help tell this story, I wanted to let the Philadelphia basketball community have its say.

There were a lot of tears, a lot of memories, a lot of thoughts and plenty of stories about Jim Fenerty, from the people who knew him best. (Quotes with an * were pulled from social media, with the poster’s permission.)

Kyle Griffin (GA ‘07), La Salle University men’s basketball associate head coach
“When I was a sophomore in high school in Allentown, I had an interest in coming down to Philly and trying to get myself some more experience, exposure, competition and everything. I ended up coming down to GA completely on my own...I didn’t know the area at all, I didn’t know one person at GA. I was this kid with acne all over my face, with braces, I was this nerdy kid and it was really, really hard that first year. He was the one that believed in me enough to push me through all that. 

“We had really good teams, obviously, but it was way more than that. Coming to GA completely changed my life...and he facilitated all of that and spearheaded all of that, and if I never went to GA I think my life would have been completely different. I could always go into his office and just hang out, and he would do his work, and I would sit there and do my work, and I just knew he was really there for me. And it never stopped.”

Evan-Eric Longino (GA ‘17), Kutztown University men’s basketball player
There’s a lot of things I can say about Coach Fenerty, and all of them would be great things. His first basketball camp was the first camp I ever went to, his sleepover camp was the first sleepover camp I ever went to, and he was the first mentor I ever had outside of my own family. His resume speaks for itself...but what I loved and what everyone else who got to know him was how great of a person he was, how genuine his character was, always wanting to make someone’s day better. If ‘selfless’ was a person, it would be Coach Fenerty.

“As a player you want a coach that you can trust and who believes in you. I can think about a lot of games we had in the Inter-Ac that were competitive...he would always come up to me or to Devon [Goodman], to Tim [Guers], to Sam [Lindgren], he would come up to us individually and let us know how much trust he had in us to get the job done and that meant everything. I will hold on to that type of relationship with him forever.”

Marty Weiss, longtime GA assistant coach
“I met Jim and helped him out with volunteering and scouting back in 1997, and it became a 25-year friendship. He was a mentor and a second father figure to my two children, who went to school at GA; more than a friend, he’s been more like a brother.”

Phil Martelli, University of Michigan men’s basketball associate head coach
“Jim Fenerty was a true teacher/servant who gave everything to his players, the basketball community and those in need as exemplified by his tireless efforts on behalf of Coaches vs Cancer. We are all better for having known and interacted with Jim. May God hold him and his loving family in the Palm of His Hand!”

Jeremy Treatman, Play-By-Play Classics Founder
“Coach Fenerty was one of the nicest men I ever met in running the Play-By-Play Classics. He must have played a game with us 12 times. He always made a point to say hi to me and thank us, and sent his kids to our photo shoot every year with never a miss. We talked about many things outside of basketball, like his role in Coaches vs. Cancer and teaching. He really cared about people, and was very classy. He will be sorely missed.”

Damien Blair, West Chester University head coach
“Great coach and an even better man! Competing against his teams when I played at Haverford made me a better player. He without question will be sorely missed.”

Gregg Downer, Lower Merion head coach
“A good man, great educator and role model who created something special at GA. A legend gone too soon.”

Craig Conlin, Holy Ghost Prep athletic director
“Jim Fenerty was a very kind & loving man. He generously provided opportunities for so many players, coaches, administrators and everyone around the sport of basketball. He gave me my first opportunity to be a teacher and coach at the high school level for which I am forever grateful.  I worked with him for 16 years and learned so much from him and his longtime assistant coach, Mike Hannigan. He was a devoted husband and father and loved his wife and children tremendously. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.”

Al Seretti, Dickinson men’s basketball head coach
“The striking thing is that the Philly basketball scene can be brutally competitive... but everyone liked Coach Fenerty. Literally have never heard a bad word about him. He was an accomplished coach, an outstanding teacher, an admired administrator and most importantly, he and his wife raised an amazing family together. Everyone has a little voice inside of them which is the person or people in your life you think of when making decisions. It is the person you most want to approve of your behaviors and whose standards you want to meet. We’d imagine Coach Fenerty was that guy for more people than he even realized. It’s almost like we all played for him. Just an amazingly special life.”

Josh Loeffler, Johns Hopkins men’s basketball head coach
“Jim Fenerty had a way of connecting with people. You could go a year between talks with him and in the next conversation you had, Jim made you feel like you were picking up right where you left off with a great friend. There aren’t many people like that.”

Fran Dunphy, Temple University acting director of athletics
“Just a really good man, who took great pride in his coaching career and he should have, because he was very, very good at it. He would be one of those guys that if you had a son that would be playing high school basketball, you’d like him to play for a man like Jim Fenerty. You would feel like he was in very good hands, and I think that says a lot about him.”

Steve Collins, former Dickinson basketball player
“I played with his son, Jimmy, in college. After games, you would have never known you were speaking to a coaching legend. He never gave advice or commented on the game. Instead, it was always how things were off the floor with family, school, friends etc. He was so much more than basketball. He was a dad, mentor and friend first. Coaching and all the wins/losses came second to his family, friends and impact outside of those 94 feet of hardwood.”

Danny Duffey, former Gettysburg basketball player
“I attended GA basketball camp when I was around 10-12 for three straight summers. Every time, Coach Fenerty went out of his way to make me feel special — always remembered my name and even wrote my family a letter encouraging me to attend GA. Every year I left camp, my confidence as a player and person increased significantly. GA basketball camp was one of the most positive basketball experiences I had growing up and grew my passion for the game exponentially, this was largely thanks to Coach Fenerty, but also his son Jimmy. Jimmy was my counselor, and always believed in me as a player. To this day, when I run into Jimmy he goes out of his way to talk to me and offer help however he can. I think that’s a reflection of the type of person his dad is and how Jimmy embodies that same value system.”

*Tim Guers (GA ‘15), professional basketball player
“Words cannot express the honor I feel for having had you as a Coach, mentor, role model, and friend. My heart breaks for your family and for the GA community that you gave so much of yourself for. You have touched many lives through basketball but so many more through the love and compassion you showed everyone around you. I will forever cherish our time on the court and the amazing things we accomplished as a team during my time at GA and will be forever grateful for you being one of the first people who believed in me as a player. Simply an amazing person and someone who TRULY cared about others and I’ll greatly miss your out-of-the-blue phone calls just to check in and make sure I am doing okay. Every kid who had the privilege to play for you was enriched with life-long values from your teachings and we will all ‘play hard, play smart, and play together’ in everything we do for the rest of your lives. Thank you for everything coach. Rest In Peace. I love you.”

*Varun Kumar (GA ‘13), Philadelphia basketball historian
“From the time I met you 20 years ago as a kid at those Saturday morning basketball clinics and attending your camps every summer, I was truly in awe of what a great coach you were. Your mantra of ‘play hard, play smart and play together,’ is something I have carried with me every single day. You became a friend and tremendous mentor to me. You helped me and looked out for me at every opportunity you got, especially when I wasn’t doing well in certain points in my life. You made sure that I got to do something I had really wanted to do, to be a manager for Pitt men’s basketball. You wrote to Coach Dixon on my behalf, a letter so glowingly of me, at a time when I was really struggling and didn’t think I was deserving of such words, and made me feel good about myself. I will never be able to repay you for that. You cared and for that I am eternally grateful. Rest in peace, Jim Fenerty. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”