Coach Larry Monaghan

My time as a student at Delcastle was such a important time in my life. Looking back throughout my life I note how many of the teachers there helped me learn not only the curriculum but how to live, how to be a good person, and how to treat others. One of the ones who helped me learn a lot was Larry Monaghan, who was principal for part of my teaching career, but was the girls basketball coach when I was a student there.

I became involved in girls basketball by following my buddy Joey Adorno's lead. I quickly realized it was fun to watch, the girls were nice, and I liked girls. I've always been attracted to girls sports. So I never thought I would actually learn anything by watching girls basketball, but it happened. After going to a number of games and getting to know all of the girls I soon found myself with a clipboard keeping stats for the team and even riding the bus to some of the games. Joey and I with all of those girls. It was a good gig!

I didn't have any classes with Coach Monaghan and he never really tried to teach me anything. What happened was purely organic. I started to realize his style was to run plays, the girls were trained and drilled in various plays. The would run to certain spots and pass the ball here and there and someone would get open and boom, they'd get a basket. He also really pushed the basics; the bounce pass, the pick, the hop stop layup, and other fundamentals. He was a coaches' coach in the respect. Whenever a game would get out of hand he would call a timeout and get the girls calmed down and instruct them on getting back to the basics. They would settle down and run the plays while sticking to the basics. They really played as a team, it was amazing.

So my big takeaway was that I always need to know the basics. Sometimes when things get a little out of control, take a time out, and focus on the basics. Follow the plans, run the plays, and good things will happen. There have been a number of times when I felt things were getting out of control in my life and I followed Coach Monaghan's plan with good results.

I learned so much without ever taking a class. I had so many good teachers at Delcastle. I just want to be as good as Mr. Kuska, Mrs. C., or Mr. Monaghan.