Just one of the great coaching operates in school basketball historical past — and the longest and winningest in Philadelphia hoops history at any stage — will formally occur to an conclusion on Henry Avenue immediately after this time.
Herb Magee, who turned 80 in June, will get in touch with it a career immediately after 1 more operate by means of background. Thomas Jefferson University declared Tuesday that Magee will close a head-coaching operate that began in 1967, bundled an NCAA College or university Division countrywide title in 1970, and now contains 1,123 victories, next in NCAA men’s hoops only to Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski (1,170), who also is retiring immediately after this period.
“It’s been in my head as a done offer for a even though,” Magee reported Tuesday more than the telephone. “I believed it was time. It is time. Search at the selection of a long time that I’ve been on this campus and the figures of players I have coached. It’s time.”
His successor, as planned, will be longtime assistant Jimmy Reilly, the faculty announced.
“He will be thriving,” Magee claimed of Reilly, who has been on his staff considering that 2007. “I’m not putting stress on him, but he will be thriving. The one detail he will do is substitute a lot more than me.”
What ever the identify they termed the university, whether Philadelphia Textile or Philadelphia College or now Jefferson, it is been Herb Magee’s faculty, genuinely due to the fact he showed up as a player from West Catholic in 1959, scoring 2,235 details as an undergraduate in the days prior to the a few-stage line. His junior yr, Magee averaged 29.1 factors a match.
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When Magee was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011, it was mentioned that in addition to his head-coaching prowess, he has been one particular of his sport’s foremost taking pictures coaches, teaching basic strategies that grade-schoolers decide on up. His own shooting feats on the summer camp circuit are legend, and Charles Barkley and Malik Rose depend on their own among the the NBA gamers who labored on their capturing with Magee, also regarded as The Shot Medical professional.
Magee will be back again up in Springfield, Mass., this weekend, aiding introduce Jay Wright when Villanova’s coach is enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
All this time, right before his personal induction and right after, Magee’s groups never ever stopped winning. His 2019-20 crew experienced just arrived in Connecticut for its initial-spherical NCAA Division II match when the overall tournament was known as off due to the fact of the pandemic, his Rams finishing that season with a 27-4 file.
Jefferson did not have a 2020-21 season, so Magee’s profession history has remained frozen at 1,123-444. He’s hoping it finishes with another vacation to the NCAA Event, which would mark the 32nd time his Rams have competent in Magee’s wonderful tenure.
“It is amazing for the players and for the University that Coach Magee is staying at Jefferson for yet another time in advance of he heads into a very well-deserved retirement,” Thomas Jefferson University president Stephen Klasko claimed in a statement. “Although being aware of Herb the way I do, he will not just be sitting all-around. We are grateful for the influence he has experienced on generations of college students, on our entire college and on the activity of basketball. He is a substantially-beloved pal and colleague and Jefferson and the Herb Magee Courtroom will usually be his home.”
“When the identify ‘Coach Magee’ is described, it is normally taken care of as a 2nd name for the university,” mentioned Jefferson athletic director Tom Shirley, the school’s women’s basketball coach, also in a assertion. “If you do not know him personally, you have at the very least heard of him. We can never thank coach adequate for all of the contributions he has made to the university above his 63 a long time. His retirement celebration will, of training course, accept his basketball knowledge, but much more importantly, it will salute a person who devoted his life to the schooling of young men and women. We would like Mentor Magee a good closing year and a long and healthy retirement.”
Asked what he would have said in 1967 if anyone explained to him he’d be coaching in 2021-22, final year or not, Magee started off laughing. “I’d have instructed them they were mad.”