By The TimesLedger
Selecting the 2001-2002 TimesLedger CHSAA boys’ basketball coach of the year was a no-brainer. Not to disparage any of his colleagues, but anyone other than longtime Archbishop Molloy head coach Jack Curran receiving the honor would have been sacrilegious. No pun intended.
Curran, in his 44th year at the Briarwood school, led the Stanners to a 21-6 record, the Brooklyn/Queens Diocesan championship crown, and two out-of-state tournament championships, the Gonzaga Classic in Washington, D.C. and the annual Beach Ball tournament in Charleston, S.C.
At 71, he is an institution, a pillar in the New York basketball community. He notched a career milestone on Dec. 19, when his team defeated Half Hollow Hills West, 100-51, for his 800th career win.
All the accolades and honors are pleasant bonuses to a job he simply loves.
“If you enjoy your work, everything else follows,” said the venerable Curran. “There’s a saying in sports that you got to love it. I guess that’s it. I love it. That’s the main thing in life — you have to enjoy what you do.”
Being successful isn’t bad either.
Playing in a league considered by experts nationwide to be the toughest in the country, the Molloy Stanners finished this past season ranked as one of the top 25 teams in all the land, while competing against teams with similar pedigrees.
Molloy might not have won the city crown — something last year’s team missed doing after a two-overtime thriller against the Rice Raiders — but Curran surely got the most from a team that lost so many key contributors from a season ago.
“During the year they surprised us by what they accomplished,” Curran said of his team. “We beat some very good teams.”
Of the team’s six losses, four were by three points or less and three were last-possession defeats. Such losses may force lesser men to run into retirement, but not Curran, who said he is not planning on stepping away from the team and school with whom he has become invariably linked.
“We’re really going a year at a time,” he said. “If I still feel like the kids are responding to me in a positive manner, I’ll continue to do it. You have to have a love of the sport. I guess I love it.”
