By Chris Goldberg
Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 11/6/15
Temple University’s Fran Dunphy is one of only 24 active coaches with over 500 Division I wins, but his greatest contributions may be the countless hours he has donated to help organizations fighting cancer.
Fran Dunphy
Dunphy, a Malvern Prep graduate, will be the guest speaker Wednesday at the 4th annual EVANFEST banquet at Drexelbrook Catering in Drexel Hill. The event has helped EVANFEST raise over $900,000 for families that have a child suffering from a life-threatening disease.
Dunphy, who has coached Temple for eight seasons after building an Ivy League power at Penn, is a leader in the local Coaches vs. Cancer campaign and was named to the National Council of Coaches vs. Cancer. He was also honored as the 2002 National Coaches vs. Cancer Coach of the Year for his service and tireless dedication to those in need. On September 23, 2008, he joined four other coaches to speak to legislators on Capitol Hill on the need for more funding for cancer research.
“Fran Dunphy is a legendary Philly coach and a Malvern Prep alum so this is a special night,” said Andrew Mackrides, one of Evan’s friends and teammates and President of the Dinner Committee of the event. “It will be a great night. We’ll have a lot of Malvern Prep alums as in previous years, but this is also a celebration of the Philadelphia lacrosse community. It’s a great night for networking and catching up.
“Having Fran speak is a special thing. He has long supported causes fighting cancer and there will be some other people from the basketball community attending.”
The banquet also will feature a silent auction with many pieces of equipment and memorabilia from the Philly sports scene.
Mackrides said other big names will attend. One is Spike Eskin, son of famed Philly broadcaster/talk show host Howard Eskin and a talk show personality himself on WIP 94.1.
“I grew up with Spike Eskin and there will be some auction items from the morning and afternoon shows,” said Mackrides. “We will have a little bit of everything.”
The EVANFEST foundation was created in the name of Evan Brady, a youth lacrosse standout who battled osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) for several years until passing away at the age of 19 in 2005. The eighth annual EVANFEST lacrosse festival will be held in April 2016 at Malvern Prep. EVANFEST draws more than 40 boys’ youth lacrosse teams.
Individual banquet tickets are still available for $85; the event runs from, 6:30-9 p.m. Click here to purchase a ticket. The first hour of the program features an open bar and time for attendees to mingle, but attendees are encouraged to be present for Dunphy’s speech, which will begin promptly at 7:30. Walk-ups will be accepted.
Mackrides noted that numerous volunteers run the banquet and the youth tournament. This allows all funds received go right to the families; already 225 families have been helped by EVANFEST. At the banquet a 5-minute video has been prepared to show the benefits for some beneficiaries.
“Volunteers donate their time or money and it all goes to the families; we’ve almost hit the million dollar mark and I think we’ll hit it in the next year or so,” said Mackrides.
This event is a celebration of the Philadelphia Lacrosse Community and its dedication to recognizing the many ways the community assists in helping people’s lives off the field as well as on the field.
The Master of Ceremonies for the event again is Philly lacrosse standout goalie Brian Dougherty, the head coach at Chestnut Hill College and a recent inductee into the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
Schedule:
6:30PM – 7:30PM Open Bar
7:30PM – 9:00 Sit Down Dinner & Speakers
One of 24 active NCAA Division I coaches with 500 victories, Fran Dunphy is in his 10th season at the helm of the Temple men’s basketball program. One of the all-time winningest coaches in Philadelphia Big 5 history, Dunphy will become just the fifth coach to win 200 games at two different Division I programs while also taking both schools to six or more NCAA Tournaments. He will join Lou Henson (New Mexico, Illinois), Rick Pitino (Kentucky, Louisville), Eddie Sutton (Arkansas, Oklahoma State) and Roy Williams (Kansas, North Carolina) in this elite club.
A part of Big 5 Basketball for the last six decades, Dunphy starred at La Salle as a player (1967-70) and served on the Explorer staff as an assistant coach before embarking on a 17-year stint as the head coach of the Penn Quakers (1989-06). He became the first person to serve as the head men’s basketball coach at two Philadelphia Big 5 institutions when he took over the reins of the Temple program from Hall of Fame coach John Chaney on April 10, 2006.
All he has done at Temple is win. He ranks fourth on the school’s all-time coaching win list with a 193-108 record while guiding the Owls to six NCAA Tournaments, three conference titles and a trip to the 2015 NIT Semifinals in his nine years at the helm. His Temple teams have defeated six Top 10 teams in his tenure and have appeared in the Top 25 during 24 weeks.
Dunphy recorded his historic 500th coaching win in impeccable fashion last season by knocking off Memphis, 80-75, in the American Athletic Conference Quarterfinal round on March 13. His overall record stands at 503-271 which includes 16 20-win seasons, 15 NCAA Tournament appearances, 13 conference championships, eight Big 5 titles and one NIT trip.
Named Philadelphia Big 5 Coach of the Year in four of his nine seasons at Temple, Dunphy led his second Owl squad on a late-season run to the Atlantic 10 Championship. He guided the Cherry and White to a 21-13 overall mark in 2007-08, including a second place A-10 regular season finish with an 11-5 conference record. He followed that by directing his charges in 2008-09 to a 22-12 record, 11-5 in league play, and another conference championship.
The 2009-10 season is one that will go down as one of the best in Temple lore. Picked tied for fifth in the A-10 preseason poll, Dunphy motivated his charges to their first A-10 regular season title (9th overall) since 2002 with a 14-2 record. The 2010 A-10 and NABC District Coach of the Year brought the Owls back into the national spotlight with the program’s first national ranking since 2001, with the team staying in the polls for 13 consecutive weeks. His Owls would go on to become just the second A-10 team to win three consecutive conference championships while also posting just the fifth perfect Philadelphia Big 5 season in the program’s history.
The number one accomplishment achieved by the 2009-10 Temple team, that finished the season with a #12 ranking in the Associated Press poll, was its 29 victories (against six defeats), which ranks third in the school’s history.
In 2010-11, Dunphy led the Owls to a 26-8 record, including another 14-2 mark in A-10 play, and a fourth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament. This time the Owls, the 7-seed in West Region, defeated 10th-seeded Penn State, 66-64, in the second round for the program’s first NCAA win since 2001. The Cherry and White game second-seeded San Diego State all they could handle in the next game before falling to the #5/6-ranked Aztecs, 71-64, in double-overtime.
It was a great season for Temple as the Owls were ranked among the nation’s Top 25 for eight weeks during the season, climbing as high as #19 in the January 10 Associated Press poll. The Owls also overcame mid-February injuries to two starters, closing the season with seven wins in their final 10 games. The only losses in that stretch came to NCAA Sweet 16 participants Duke, Richmond and San Diego State.
In 2011-12, despite losing projected starter Scootie Randall for the season and center Micheal Eric for 13 games, Dunphy guided his charges to a 24-8 mark and the program’s first outright A10 regular season title since 1989-90. The Owls finished 13-3 in league play and Dunphy earned his second A10 Coach of the Year honor for his efforts. Temple defeated #3/3 Duke to mark its fourth straight season with a win over a Top 10 opponent, and later cracked the national polls for the third straight year.
Temple, which also shared the Big 5 title, earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season, and was the fifth-seed in the NCAA Midwest Region.
In 2012-13, Dunphy again guided the Owls to another 20-plus win campaign with the Cherry and White becoming one of eight teams to compete in the last six straight NCAA Tournaments. Temple also knocked off a Top 10 team, this time #3/3 Syracuse, 83-79, at Madison Square Garden (12/22/12) to extend its current nation’s best record to five straight seasons of defeating a Top 10 foe while being unranked at the time.
Temple would finish the campaign with a 24-10 record, advancing to the third round of the NCAA Tournament before narrowly falling to top-ranked Indiana, 58-52. The Owls capped their final season in the Atlantic 10 Conference with a thrilling 84-76 win over #19/21 VCU on CBS to finish tied for third in the league with an 11-5 record.
The program struggled in 2013-14, its first season in the American Athletic Conference. In a classic rebuilding year, the Owls posted a 9-22 record. The Cherry and White did continue its streak of wins over a nationally-ranked program to seven with a 71-64 upset over #23 SMU.
In 2014-15, Dunphy led his team to the best turnaround among all Division I teams, posting 17 more wins than the previous season to finish at 26-11 overall and 13-5 in the conference. A signature win over #10 Kansas was among the total as the Owls posted a 77-52 victory over the Jayhawks at the Wells Fargo Center (12/22).
The Owls finished the regular season 23-10, but were surprisingly left out of the NCAA Tournament. As the #1 overall seed in the NIT, Dunphy, in his time coaching in the tournament, guided Temple to wins over Bucknell, George Washington and Louisiana Tech to reach the semifinals, before falling to Miami at Madison Square Garden.
Dunphy was named American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, marking his third conference coach of the year honor (A-10: 2010, 2012). He also joined Chaney (516) as one of only two coaches to win 500 or more games at Big 5 schools.
One of the most respected coaches in the nation, Dunphy has coached eight Conference Players of the Year, three Conference Rookies of the Year, five perfect Conference seasons and 53 All-Conference honorees.
Prior to joining Penn’s coaching staff, Dunphy served as an assistant under Speedy Morris at his alma mater, La Salle University (1985-86 through 1987-88). The Philadelphia native’s coaching career began at the United States Military Academy (1971-72), where he served as an assistant under head coach Dan Dougherty. In 1975, he became head coach of his high school alma mater, Malvern Prep. He remained there until becoming Lefty Ervin’s assistant at La Salle University (1979-80).
The following year, Dunphy joined current Maryland head coach Gary Williams’ staff at American University. He served as an assistant two seasons under Williams, and the final three years under Ed Tapscott, the former head coach of the NBA’s Washington Wizards (2008-09). He returned to La Salle in 1985, serving one more season under Ervin and assisting Morris for two seasons. He left La Salle to become Tom Schneider’s assistant at Penn in 1988.
In 1989, Dunphy was named the 16th head coach at Penn. He would compile a 310-163 overall record in his 17-year career. His Quaker teams won an unprecedented 48 straight Ivy League games and four league titles from 1992 through 1996. His 1993-94 team posted a 25-3 record and earned a Number 25 ranking in the CNN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll, the program’s first such ranking since the 1978-79 campaign. That year also included a 90-80 first round upset of sixth-seed Nebraska in the NCAA Tournament.
In his last eight seasons at Penn, Dunphy guided the Quakers to six Ivy League titles and a 93-19 league record. From 1999-2001, he led Penn to 25 straight league wins, including a perfect 14-0 mark in 1999-2000. In 2001-02, Dunphy’s Quakers posted a 25-7 record and won the school’s first outright city-series title with a perfect 4-0 mark since 1973-74.
A full-time educator on and off the court, Dunphy is in his eighth year teaching in Temple’s prestigious Fox School of Business. He is team-teaching an honors course with Dr. Lynne Anderson, entitled, Management, Theory & Practice: From the Locker Room to the Board Room. He previously had served as a lecturer in the Wharton Executive Education program and in the management department of the Wharton School.
Dunphy is one of the leaders in the local Coaches vs. Cancer campaign and was named to the National Council of Coaches vs. Cancer. He was also honored as the 2002 National Coaches vs. Cancer Coach of the Year for his service and tireless dedication to those in need. On September 23, 2008, he joined four other coaches to speak to legislators on Capitol Hill on the need for more funding for cancer research.
The Owl mentor also devotes time to Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greater Philadelphia’s Board of Directors, and his Penn and Temple teams have participated in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program each year. He is also a member of the Philadelphia CYO Hall of Fame.
A 1970 La Salle graduate with a degree in marketing, Dunphy was an outstanding player under Explorers’ head coach Tom Gola. As a junior, he helped the Explorers to a 23-1 record. He served as a co-captain his senior year when he averaged 18.6 ppg and led the team in assists, while also being named the MVP of the annual Quaker City Basketball Tournament. In 1979, he earned a Master’s degree in counseling and human relations from Villanova University.
Dunphy and his wife, Ree, reside in Villanova, Pa., with their son, J.P.