We lost so many great coaches in 2020 (Lou Henson/Lute Olson/Eddie Sutton/etc.) and it turns out that we lost another 1 today in Jim Phelan. After playing basketball at La Salle and being drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors in 1951, he won 830 games with his signature bow tie at Mt. St. Mary’s during a career that lasted almost a half-century. He won the 1962 D-2 title, was twice named national COY, and was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to chat with Coach Phelan a few years ago and is proud to present this never-before-published interview in honor of his life/legacy. We send our condolences to all of Coach Phelan’s family/friends on their loss.
1 of your grade-school teammates was Hall-of-Famer Paul Arizin, who also served as your teammate both with the Marines and in the NBA: how close were you and Paul, and what made him such a great player? We were very close: he was only 1 grade ahead of me. We played every day and I could see him improving as he got taller. We ended up going to the same high school but amazingly he was the last guy cut from a team that ended up winning the city title. Coach Al Severance saw him playing 1 day and asked him to come to Villanova…but it turned out that Paul was already enrolled there! He was a great leaper and would go play anywhere against anyone.
In the spring of 1951 you were drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors, but you spent 2 years serving in the Marines before playing 4 games for the Warriors during the 1953-54 season: what did it mean to you to be drafted, and why did you decide to join the Marines? There were only 8 NBA teams back then so not everybody got picked. The law was going to be changed regarding the military draft so we were encouraged to join the reserves before we got sent off to war. I was asked by a general to try and recruit Arizin to join our Marine team…even though he had already been named NBA ROY! He enlisted and went to Parris Island and he even liked it. The Warriors ended up letting me go after they found a guy who would play for $500 less.
After retiring from the NBA you spent 1 year as an assistant coach at your alma mater during La Salle’s run to the 1954 NCAA title behind Hall of Fame coach Ken Loeffler and NCAA career REB leader Tom Gola: what made Loeffler such a great coach, and what made Gola such a great player? Loeffler contacted me because he had no assistant coach to help him out. Gola was in high school when I was in college and I ended up coaching him when he was a freshman: we went 18-1 and lost our only game that year by 1 point.
You began coaching at Mt. St. Mary’s in 1954 and went 22-3 in your very 1st season: why did you take the job, and how were you able to come in and be so successful so quickly? Coaches always get offers after winning a title and the job came down to me and Jack McCloskey. I got the job because Jack had too much to give up: he had a wife/2 kids. I arrived to find a star in Jack Sullivan and a bunch of guards from New Jersey who could also play. They were ready for a coach to yell at them and tell them to do something: it was almost too easy.
In 1962 your team had a 1-PT OT win over Sacramento State to win the D-2 title: how were you able to hang on and win the title, and what was the reaction like when you got back to campus? It was wild, of course: we had an all-male school so they did a lot of zany things. We had an OT win the night before against Southern Illinois: our timing was right because Walt Frazier did not show up until the following year!
That same year you were named national COY: what did it mean to you to win such an outstanding honor? They presented me the award at the Final 4 so it was fun to get that, but I had already enjoyed a lot of team success when I was at La Salle.
In 1981 you were again named national COY as your team won a school-record 28 games before a 5-PT loss to Florida Southern in the D-2 title game: how close did you come to winning the title, and what was the feeling like in your locker room afterwards? It was a tough loss because we thought that we should have won. We had a good team but our 2 leading scorers had a bit of a letdown. We were in it the whole way but could not get it done at the finish.
In the 1995 NCAA tourney Walter McCarty had 17 PTS/11 REB in a win by #1-seed Kentucky: how painful was that 46-PT loss? I remember that the score was 7-5 early on: there were a lot of photos taken of the scoreboard at that point! We were happy to be there and did not play too badly. We had beaten Georgia Tech at the buzzer a few months earlier so we were used to good competition. Chris McGuthrie scored 37 PTS while Stephon Marbury appeared to be trash-talking him all night. I asked Chris what Marbury had said: Chris said he just kept asking, “When will you ever f—ing miss?!”
What are your memories of the 1999 NCAA tourney (Antonio Smith had 14 PTS/12 REB in 18 minutes in a win by #1-seed Michigan State)? We played them pretty tough until we blew a layup and they hit a 3-PT shot for a 5-PT swing, and then it was effectively over.
You retired in 2003 with 830 wins (currently 14th on the all-time list), and you also set the record for most games coached with 1354 (currently 4th on the all-time list): what made you such a great coach, and do you think that anyone will ever break your record? Nobody will ever coach more games at 1 school because no administrator is that patient and loyalty will not run deep enough. I arrived at the Mount at the right time because they had gone through several coaching changes. I was told that it did not matter if I lost most of my games: I just had to beat Loyola if I wanted to keep my job! The administration at the Mount was very supportive and I became very friendly with them.