The St. Francis Prep boys’ basketball team didn’t win a championship this year, nor did the team finish atop the Brooklyn/Queens Diocesan standings or make a valiant playoff push in a league widely considered the best of its kind in the country.
No, the Lil’ Terriers did none of that. What the team did do is maximize its potential, which is something head coach Tim Leary has been pulling out of teams for close to four decades and why he has been named TimesLedger CHSAA Boys’ Coach of the Year.
“I thought, all things considered, for what we were, we had a good year,” Leary said of his team, which finished with an overall record of 16-11. “Certainly we had more of an opportunity to win more games, but considering the league we’re in, I thought they did a good job.”
Leary, who graduated from St. Francis Prep while still in Brooklyn, was a star baseball and basketball player for the school, playing on the same hoops team as future St. John’s University star and NBA player Lloyd “Sonny” Dove and lost in the city finals to Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Power Memorial.
Leary went on to Manhattan College, where he also played two sports, including on three N.I.T. basketball teams. His first job out of college was as coach of St. Augustine High School in Brooklyn until the school closed two years later. He then took over the junior varsity spot at St. Francis for five years before assuming the varsity duties.
Long considered the Princeton of the CHSAA, St. Francis has thrived under Leary despite being consistently undersized and having to play against high school teams replete with Division I talent.
This year Leary relied on players like Boston University-bound Bryan Geffen, who typifies the kind of player Leary has made a career of coaching. The team went all the way to the CHSAA quarterfinals before losing to eventual city runner-up Xaverian — after leading by 12 at the half.
How does he do it? He exploits his team’s positives and protects its weaknesses by getting his kids in tip-top shape and outworking opposing teams.
“We certainly work very hard on conditioning,” Leary said. “That certainly helps us in the long run, but we didn’t have any real big kid. If we had one real tough kid in the middle, we would have been real tough in the league.”
Leary has no plans on stepping down any time soon.
“I don’t know,” he said. “As long as I’m still teaching, I’d like to do it. I really don’t have any plans on leaving.”
