City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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This wasn’t Fran O’Hanlon’s plan.

The 74-year-old had retired in the spring of 2022 after 27 seasons at Lafayette, what seemed like the conclusion of a 40-year coaching career that had taken him from Israel to the Philadelphia Catholic League and then (with several stops in between) up to the Lehigh Valley, where he took the Leopards to three NCAA Tournaments. 

When the boys’ job at Cardinal O’Hara opened up earlier this spring, the O’Hara administration approached O’Hanlon, who lives just 10 minutes from the Springfield school in Delaware County. He declined the offer to lead the program, but agreed to be a part-time assistant coach for former Carroll assistant Mike Richards, who took over the job in the spring. 

But Richards’ hiring didn’t work out as he stepped back from the job earlier in June, leaving O’Hara once again without a head coach. O’Hanlon, approached once again, agreed to take over. The school announced his arrival officially on Monday morning.

“I didn’t want them to be without a coach, and then start scrambling,” he told CoBL by phone Monday night. “I thought, I’d been to open gyms and I’d gotten to know some of the kids, They were playing pickup and stuff and I’d gotten to know them. They need some continuity here, they don’t need to start over again. That’s my thought process there.”

A graduate of the now-closed St. Thomas More High School in Philadelphia and then Villanova University, O’Hanlon won a Catholic League title as a player and then again as a coach with Bonner in 1988, with Brian Daly chipping in a then-record 30 points in the title game after scoring a then-record-28 in the semifinals. (Thanks, Ted).

He spent one more year in the high school ranks and then the next three decades and change at the Division I level, returning to a landscape that he’s monitored from the hills of Easton, Pa., occasionally snatching a recruit from Philly. That’s been enough exposure to be aware that the Philadelphia Catholic League he’ll coach in this winter is quite different from the one he knew.

“It’s been a while, and things have changed,” he said. “What I’ve learned is, things have changed. At that point you had people from different parishes, it wasn’t open enrollment [...] with the open enrollment, it’s very competitive. Some very good players in the Catholic League.”

What he’s also aware of is the invisible line he’s crossing, even if it’s three-and-a-half decades later. O’Hara and Bonner are fierce rivals, the two Delco squads only about 10 minutes apart; there’s no doubt some hurt feelings of Friars who played long ago seeing their former coach suit up in Lions gear. Daly, his former standout, is helping out on the Friars bench this year.

O’Hanlon said he got a text last week: You have to be the only person who’s ever coached Bonner and O’Hara — and you’re probably the only one who can get away with it. 

It’s not totally unnavigated territory for O’Hanlon, going from one end of a rivalry to another. 

“When I was in Israel [...] I coached Hapoel Haifa one year, and the derby was Maccabi Haifa and Hapoel hated Maccabi,” he said. “The next year I was coaching Maccabi, and I was like, ‘do you know what they’re saying over there?’ and they were like, ‘we have a pretty good idea, coach.’ It’s like if you go from Villanova to St. Joe’s. It’s a rival, a huge rival, and you don’t usually coach both of them.”

O’Hara does have some talent for O’Hanlon to start with. The Lions’ plans start with senior guard Aasim ‘Flash’ Burton (13.2 ppg, 5.0 apg) and senior forward Pearse McGuinn (12.4 ppg, 6.0 rpg), two scholarship-level ballplayers and returning starters from a year ago, when the Lions went 18-8 (8-5 PCL), losing to Allentown Central Catholic in the second round of the PIAA 4A playoffs after falling to Roman Catholic in the quarterfinals of the PCL. 

Gone are Izaiah Pasha (17.7 ppg, 7.7 rpg), Josh Coulanges (11.5 ppg) and Christian Cervellero (7.5 ppg), while Miles Johnson (2.9 ppg) and Anthony Hobbs (1.6 ppg) return off the bench. Further depth will have to be developed to be competitive in the toughest league around, with a number of other programs primed to take a significant step forward.

O’Hanlon will have to spend the preseason not just getting to know his new players but implementing his system. Those who saw his teams know he was an offensive whiz, the Leopards routinely one of the best shooting and ball-movement squads around.

“I’ll try to,” he said. “It all depends on the [basketball] IQ — when you’re in college you can recruit, not that you can’t in high school, but you can recruit [high]-IQ kids that fit your style of play, your system.”

Of course, it’ll take O’Hanlon a bit of time to get to know his team. He’s gotten to see them in some limited action at Philly Live and in team events before then, but July will see his squad scattered on various grassroots teams, playing in events around the country. It won’t be until August that the focus turns back to the high school squad, and even then, college visits and vacations tend to push that schedule back towards September.

“The next three to four weeks I’ll get my program together, get things organized,” O’Hanlon said. “The coaching really won’t start until I get them in the gym and build my culture, the culture [of] how I think we should play and how we should present ourselves.

“When you’re taking over a program, (there’s) always things that have to change. And we have to get them to get on my train, so to speak. That’s where I’m at.”