Fran Dunphy salutes the man he replaced at Temple
In looking back at his time at Temple, Dunphy says none of it would have occurred without the support of the man he replaced, John Chaney.
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It was a move that nobody saw coming 13 years ago, when Fran Dunphy succeeded John Chaney as head basketball coach at Temple after a successful 17-year reign as Penn’s coach.
As Dunphy closes his 13th and final season at Temple, to be replaced by associate head coach Aaron McKie, he has tried not to be too reflective at this point.
The Owls (23-8, 13-5 American Athletic Conference) appear headed to the NCAA Tournament. He admittedly doesn’t like to look back, because for Dunphy at this point the only thing that matters is the next game.
For Temple, that means a Friday quarterfinal in the AAC Tournament in Memphis. After a first-round bye, third-seeded Temple will meet the winner of No. 6 Wichita State vs. No. 11 East Carolina in a 9 p.m. game Friday.
Dunphy doesn’t want to get too nostalgic at this point, but he did discuss in a video interview with The Inquirer last month, among other topics, the relationship with Chaney, the man he followed at Temple. In 24 seasons, Chaney was 516-253 and guided the Owls to 17 NCAA Tournament appearances, including five times in the Elite Eight.
“I love the man and he is a great friend and I appreciate the fact that he welcomed me to succeed him, which probably wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t welcoming,” Dunphy said of Chaney. “Then I would not have made the move.”
Dunphy’s career record is 580-323. He guided Penn to the NCAA Tournament nine times in his 17 seasons there. Temple has earned seven NCAA berths in his first 12 seasons and is in line to make it eight this year.
He will always look back fondly at his Penn days.
“It was a great time and I appreciate my time at Penn and the opportunity they gave me as a head coach,” he said.
Dunphy went 12-18 in his first season at Temple in 2006-07, but in his second year he guided the Owls to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2000-01 season. That was the beginning of six straight years in the NCAA’s.
“We had some really good players who were locked into attempting to get in the tournament each year,” Dunphy said.
The last of those six teams was the 24-10 squad of 2012-13, which beat North Carolina State, 76-72, in the first round of the tournament and then lost to Indiana, 58-52.
“The last team in that run was led by Khalif Wyatt, who was really a genius of an offensive basketball player,” Dunphy said.
Wyatt averaged a team-high 20.5 points that season and scored 31 in the Owls’ NCAA win over N.C. State.
“It was enjoyable to coach him later in his career,” Dunphy said. “In the first part of his career, he was challenging, to be honest with you but he’s a good man and I am happy at the success he has had overseas.”
Not surprisingly, Dunphy says he hasn’t thought much about what he will be doing past this year.
When Dunphy, 70, was asked if he has closed the door to coaching, he said, “I haven’t thought about it even a moment.”
He says he is too consumed with the present, but did say he would like to continue teaching. He is in his eighth year of team-teaching an honors course with Dr. Lynne Anderson, titled Management, Theory and Practice: From the Locker Room to the Board Room.
He suggested he might spend more time in the classroom in the future.
“I have enjoyed it very much in the limited time I have done it,” he said of teaching. ”I think it is engaging, it is inspiring and I certainly learned much more than the students have.”
“I have been very blessed and very lucky to have been in the coaching profession for as long as I have,” he said. “I am grateful for it, so I will miss everything about it, mostly the competition.”