Even though I've been purposely trying to cover the local angles at the Pan Am Games trials, there's no doubt that the thing has a distinctly Philly flavor.
A big part of that is Fran O'Hanlon, whose work as a court coach wrapped up after the first round of roster cuts. The Philadelphia native played on the great Villanova teams of the late 1960s, and later built an offense as an assistant coach at Penn that fueled the Quakers' upset of Nebraska in the 1994 NCAA Tournament.
A year later, O'Hanlon took over the head coaching job at Lafayette College. For those of you who aren't from the Philadelphia area, Lafayette is a Patriot League school about an hour and a half from here in Easton, Pa. O'Hanlon still maintains his Philly ties, though; he's close friends with Temple coach Fran Dunphy (who hired O'Hanlon at Penn) and Villanova's Jay Wright.
So it came as no surprise to me to hear that O'Hanlon was named a court coach for the Pan Am Games trials, meaning that he got to coach one of the scrimmage teams. There's no question that these are the best college players he's ever had to coach -- not least because his Leopards only got athletic scholarships last year.
Click on the picture below to watch my interview with him and some clips of him working on the bench.
