Steve Donahue was all set to wear a green tie for St. Patrick’s Day, before changing his mind at the last minute. For his introductory press conference at the Palestra on Tuesday, the new Penn basketball coach opted for the red and blue tie instead.
You know, Penn’s colors.
Back with the Quakers after 15 years, Donahue just had to show off the pride he has for the university that made him into the coach he is today.
“This place,” he said, “is a place that is everything I could ever want in an institution.”
Luckily for him, Donahue is also everything Penn wanted in its next men’s basketball coach. And that’s why athletic director Grace Calhoun didn’t waste any time hiring the former Penn assistant and Cornell and Boston College head coach to help turn the floundering program around.
Donahue was hired Monday, less than a week after Jerome Allen stepped down following three straight losing seasons.
“We’re not where we want to be,” Donahue said. “We need to get back on top where we belong. I’m going to work as hard as I can to make sure that happens.”
If anyone knows the potential of Penn’s basketball program, it’s Donahue.
From 1990 to 2000, he served on Fran Dunphy’s staff at Penn, helping the Quakers capture six Ivy League titles, including four separate undefeated conference campaigns. During that span, Penn compiled a 182-91 record and a 114-26 mark in Ivy play. And exactly 21 years ago today, Penn won its last NCAA tournament game, beating Nebraska in the first round of the Big Dance – with Donahue on the sidelines and Allen starring on the court.
Of course, a lot’s changed since then. Back when Donahue was an assistant, Penn’s only real competition in the league was Princeton, as the two former Ivy powerhouses combined for every conference title from 1989 to 2007.
The league is a lot more competitive now with Harvard having won at least a share of five straight Ivy crowns and other teams rising from the bottom of the league and passing Penn in the conference hierarchy.
“The days are over in this league where you can rely on this building and the Big 5 to take you to the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “This league has changed.”
Donahue, interestingly enough, is one of the big reasons why the league changed. After Dunphy left Penn for Temple in 2006 – and Penn passed over Donahue for the job to hire the ill-fated Glen Miller – Donahue ended the reign of the big “P”s by leading Cornell to three straight Ivy titles starting in 2008.
The icing on the cake was Cornell’s magical run to the Sweet 16 in 2010, marking the farthest an Ivy League team advanced in the NCAA Tournament since Penn’s Final Four trip in 1979.
But getting Cornell to that point certainly wasn’t easy, as the Ursinus grad endured many losing seasons and failed efforts to get Philly-area recruits.
“When I went to Cornell in 2000, I thought I had all the answers,” Donahue said. “I was a bad basketball coach for a good stretch. Like all my experiences, I thought it enabled me to figure things out.”
Donahue wasn’t afforded much of an opportunity to figure things out at Boston College, getting fired after four years with the Eagles. Still, he doesn’t regret springboarding off his success at Cornell to jump to the ACC in 2010.
“I can’t tell you what an incredible experience that was for me and my family,” he said. “I had incredible growth in my personal development in that time. … I learned that failure isn’t fatal. You have growth and you move on. And I’m here.”
Because of his failures at Boston College, there were some Penn fans out there that hoped the Quakers would try to snag a younger coach on the rise. Some popular names were Robert Morris head coach Andy Toole and Colgate head coach Matt Langel, both of whom were star guards for the Quakers.
But Penn athletic director Grace Calhoun settled on Donahue after a five-and-a-half hour interview, while making clear she thoroughly vetted many other candidates.
“Doing your due diligence and making sure you make the right decision is critically important,” she said. “On the other hand, we’re in a competitive industry. And with a lot of jobs opening and searches gearing up, I certainly was acutely aware that our ability to talk to the most desirable candidates was going to be predicated on our ability to move quickly.”
Donahue confirmed he would have had some other opportunities after spending a year away from coaching as a TV analyst, but he made it clear that this job was far and away his top choice.
“A lot of people think, including my family, the main reason was this is in Philadelphia,” said Donahue, a native of Springfield Township. “I love Philadelphia. I love everything about it. But that has little to do with this decision, in all honesty. This decision is based on my research that, of the institutions that were going to open, this is flat out the best spot to win – with the right type of kids and the right way.”