La Salle coach Fran Dunphy, the all-time winningest coach in Philadelphia Big 5 history and one of the all-time gentlemen in college basketball, will retire following this season, the school said in a press release.
Dunphy has accumulated 623 career victories at Penn, Temple and La Salle, his alma mater. He is the only person to lead three different schools in the Big 5, which consists of La Salle, Penn, Saint Joseph’s, Temple, Villanova and, beginning in 2023–24, Drexel.
A fiery competitor despite his humble, calm demeanor outside of the lines, Dunphy turned Penn into an Ivy League powerhouse after he took over in 1989. He led the Quakers to 10 Ivy League titles in 17 years and won 48 consecutive league games during one stretch. After coach John Chaney retired at Temple, Dunphy left Penn as the school’s all-time wins leader with 310 victories to take the helm on North Broad Street. There, he continued Chaney’s remarkable legacy by reaching eight NCAA tournaments in 13 seasons.
After stepping away from coaching following the 2018–19 season, Dunphy was lured back to the sidelines by his alma mater, becoming the school’s 20th head coach on April 5, 2022. La Salle is in elite company as a school that has won a national championship, led by Hall of Famer Tom Gola to the 1954 title, and had regular on-court success into the early 1990s. But the Explorers have fallen on hard times over several decades, entering 2024–25 with just four winning records in league play in 29 seasons in the Atlantic 10 and just one NCAA tournament berth since 1992.
But Dunphy’s hiring rejuvenated the fan base and helped to secure funding for Glaser Arena, the Explorers’ badly needed new home court which opened prior to this season and replaced outdated Tom Gola Arena. The facility facelift energized the entire campus, including the always competitive Dunphy, who told me before the season during an interview on the Bracy Sports Media podcast how excited he was.
“Our job as coaches and players is to play the best that we can so people want to come and enjoy the fruits of the labor of the people who have donated the money, the Glaser family being the lead gift,” Dunphy said. “We’re so grateful for the people of La Salle doing what they have done.”
The Explorers gave fans reason to cheer, too, opening this season with six consecutive home victories over mostly low-level competition. Dunphy’s team thrilled home fans with a victory over city rival Temple on Nov. 30 that sent the Owls into the Big 5 title game, where they eventually lost to Saint Joseph’s while playing short-handed. Still, getting to the city final was a meaningful, positive step for the Explorers.
Success was nothing new for Dunphy, even in the face of the challenges at La Salle. He defied prognosticators in each of the first two seasons on Olney Avenue, not only not finishing last in spite of being picked in the A-10 cellar in the preseason in each of the last two years, but reaching the conference tournament quarterfinals in 2023 and nearly doing it again last year but for a shot at the buzzer not falling. Lately, though, La Salle has struggled, its latest loss to Richmond on Wednesday night making it five defeats in a row. The Explorers stand at 12-15 overall and 4-10 in the A-10, something Dunphy surely will aim to improve upon with four regular-season contests remaining before the conference tournament.
As great as he was on the court, Dunphy deflected credit. In a sport full of ego, his seemingly was in check. He always remained a Philadelphia kid who loved basketball, who loved giving back, who never took himself too seriously. As much as he accomplished on the court, all those victories, all those people impacted as basketball players and young men, Dunphy’s legacy off the court might be even greater. Along with former Saint Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli, Dunphy spearheaded the city’s chapter of Coaches vs. Cancer that has raised millions of dollars in the fight against the dreaded disease. He spoke recently after an Explorers game about how proud he was of what has been accomplished in the fight against cancer in Philly but how much more still was needed to do.
It is an attitude that was kind of like his coaching, never satisfied with just being okay, always pushing to be the best — both on the court and, more importantly, off it.
