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Constitution assistant Fran Hamilton, 31, dies

07/02/2014, 12:00pm EDT

By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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A few months ago, Constitution assistant coach Fran Hamilton was offered a head coaching job at a school out west--and turned it down. Having been at Constitution for three years, he wanted to see a special group of seniors graduate and defend a state title before he left.

He never got the chance.

Just a few days after guiding the Generals to a hard-fought title game win in their summer league, Hamilton passed away in his sleep on Saturday night. He was 31 years old.

"He didn't want to leave them," his father, Fran Hamilton III, said. "He'd been asked to come out that way and he said no because he wanted to stay with the kids for their fourth and final year."

In his three years at Constitution, Hamilton had become an invaluable piece to head coach Rob Moore's staff. In addition to doing scouting work on opposing teams, providing transportation and various other tasks, he also coached the team during various summer leagues and team camps where Moore was unable to be on the sideline.

Now instead of preparing to defend their PIAA Class AA title, which they won 61-59 over Seton-La Salle on March, the Generals will have to adjust to moving forward without a huge part of the program.

"We've been very successful the last three years, Fran's been completely integral in everything we did," Moore said.

A graduate of Frankford High School and Western Kentucky University, Hamilton went on to get his Master's degree in sports administration from Concordia. Unmarried, he still lived at home with his parents, Fran and Kim. He is also survived by a younger brother, Justin, 29, who's a Lieutenant in the Navy, working aboard a submarine.

His love of basketball came very early on.

"When he was three or four years old, we had a nanny [Janet Zukites] who had a full scholarship to Immaculata to play ball," his father said. "And she chose to stay with us, and she basically started him out with a basketball in his hands. She taught him everything basketball-wise, and he just loved the game."

Hamilton, who came to Constitution in 2011 after coaching at Strawberry Mansion, formed a special relationship with the incoming freshman class that year--Ahmad Gilbert, Kimar Williams, Akeem King, Haneef Vaughn and others who are all still at the school and starting on the varsity basketball team.

And there was no questioning how devoted he was to that group and that team. Even though his assistant position at the school was entirely voluntarily, it was Hamilton who drove the team to tournaments around the country.

"It didn't matter where he had to be, he'd be there," his father said, before pausing. "We bought him three different cars throughout the years because he put over 200,000 miles on each one of them."

"He drove to Florida, drove to Vegas, drove to all these places, just to be around the guys and be a coach," Moore said. "It was just huge to be that committed to a group of kids, and I just told them to take everything that Fran might have taught them, and anything they might have learned from him, on-and-off the court stuff, and just treasure that stuff for the future."

In addition to his coaching duties with Constitution, Hamilton had spent the last three years working with the Philly Pride AAU organization. Philly Pride's director, Kamal Yard, said Hamilton "just volunteered his help, pretty much...wherever he could, he would help out.

"He was good people," Yard added. "It's really sad. Just flat-out good people, man. That's really a tough pill to swallow for really the basketball community here as a whole, Fran was friends with everybody."

"Man, it's tough," said Sean Colson, the head coach at Martin Luther King and for Philly Pride's 16U team. "He really was a good guy who also was very smart. His coaching skills were very good, too. It's just a tough loss for everybody at this point."

Recently, Hamilton had been coaching Constitution's summer league team at the NEBL. Last Thursday night, under his guidance, the Generals knocked off Neumann-Goretti to take home the NEBL's championship.

"It's hitting-hard for me, because I just spoke with him Thursday after Constitution beat Neumann and he told me he never noticed how much he missed me down low until I graduated," said Raheem Liggins, who just graduated this spring. "And that meant a lot to me."

Liggins arrived for the 2012-13 season, coming over for his last two seasons from Prep Charter. He gave Hamilton a lot of credit for helping him feel welcome at the school and making him part of the team.

"He meant a lot to me and the team," he said. "He was a big help in my life and basketball career, and I'm thankful to have had a chance to be able to get coaching and learn things from him before he passed."

Hamilton stood about 6-foot-6 and his weight had risen lately to well over 300 pounds, but that size belied a quiet, friendly personality.

"He was a teddy bear," his dad said. "If you knew him, he was there. His aunts will tell you if they needed to move heavy furniture, or something like that...next thing you'd know, they'd be right up there. There was never a question--you could rely on him, always."

A memorial for Fran Hamilton IV will be held on Thursday, July 3, from 10 AM to noon at the Hoffman Funeral Home (1770 Brown Ave., Bensalem). A luncheon will follow at Bensalem Country Club.