From the Coast Star - January 13, 2000

Sixty-seven-year-old Pat McCann spent nearly half his life walking across 8th Street in Belmar to go to work at St. Rose High School.

Now, 12 years after the legendary boys basketball coach retired with over 400 wins and four state championships, the school is paying him the ultimate compliment for his years of service by naming their gymnasium after him.

Saturday, during halftime of St. Rose’s 12 p.m. game against Red Bank Catholic, the St. Rose gym will be officially christened the McCann Activities and Athletic Center, or MAAC.

For McCann, the son of Irish immigrants, it’s an honor that came completely unexpected, but one that will no doubt put a final stamp on his illustrious coaching career.

“I said, ‘you’ve got to be kidding.’ Those were the first words out of my mouth,” McCann said of the initial conversation he had with St. Rose Athletic Director Dick Alger, who began a push last winter to have the gym named in honor of McCann.

“I really appreciate it. I’m so thankful to Dick and the St. Rose administration. I was flabbergasted,” McCann said. “Every day that it gets closer I get more and more butterflies. I have that old feeling again.”

“That old felling” began at an early age for McCann. Born in Newark in 1933, McCann settled in Belmar in 1939 and began playing basketball in elementary school. He continued up the chain, playing for St. Rose before attending Notre Dame University in South Bend, Ind.

After a stint on the freshman team McCann’s playing career fizzled out, but that competitive fire needed an outlet, so he turned to coaching. After graduating from Notre Dame in 1955 McCann entered the U.S. Air Force, where he served as a bombardier/navigator and kept his mind on basketball by coaching in the service.

McCann returned home to Belmar in 1958 and took over the St. Rose boys program from Steve Gepp. McCann would remain on the bench until the middle of the 1988 season, when he finally called it quits. Along the way he won 404 games and lost 300, appearing in five state championship games and taking away four titles.

He coached current Princeton University head coach Billy Carmody, Duke University and NBA player Bob Verga, and current Pinelands head coach Vinnie Tralka, among countless others. He also worked as Athletic Director and was responsible for hiring current St. Rose boys basketball coach Dennis Devaney, his replacement in 1988, and girls coach Dick McCallum.

McCann said he doesn’t regret retiring in the middle of the 1988 season. He knew it was the best thing for the team. The end came on Jan. 6, 1988 after a game against Red Bank.

“I knew I wasn’t doing the right thing for the kids. I just felt like they needed some new blood,” McCann said. “It was the right thing to do.”

Devaney had mixed emotions about taking over in the shadow of a legend.

“I still call him a living legend. I named my first son after John Wooden of UCLA and my second son after Dean Smith (UNC). I’m into coaches that put up great numbers and he’s one of them,” Devaney said. “If I had another son, I probably would have named him after Pat McCann.”

So McCann left the game, leaving him more time to spend with his wife, Irene, children Karen, Patrick III, and Roddy, as well as his three grandchildren.

But Saturday afternoon McCann will be back in the St. Rose gym, a place that harbors so many of his fondest memories, to receive the acclaim Agler feels is long overdue.

“I had known of Pat for many years. I asked around to various people why the gym wasn’t named after him,” said Alger, who has been at St. Rose for the last five years.

“I was on a mission to do what I thought was the right thing. It was the proper thing to do,” Alger added.

McCann was largely responsible for building the tradition that St. Rose has so proudly defended over the years, and has become such an icon at the school that it’s only fitting the gym be named in his honor.

McCallum agreed wholeheartedly. If not for McCann, McCallum’s coaching career might have been snuffed out in the early 1980s. McCallum was hired by McCann after he was forced to leave Mater Dei when the Seraphs joined the Shore Conference. Shore Conference rules at the time stated that coaches had to be teachers.

McCallum went to St. Rose, where he coached for four years before St. Rose joined the Shore Conference. McCallum was forced out again, but he went back to school and got the necessary credits to receive an associates degree, a requirement for coaching after a rule change.

When he was ready, McCann hired McCallum back in 1994 to become the girls head coach.

“I can’t say enough good things about him. He’s a tremendous person. I thought my coaching career was over,” McCallum said.

McCallum, another basketball junkie, understands what a profound honor it is to have a gym bear a coaches name. Some of the most famous college gymnasiums, like Rupp Arena at the University of Kentucky and the Dean Smith Center at the University of North Carolina, have been named for legendary coaches. It’s the part of the intangible lure of basketball that bridges generations and erases racial and gender lines.

“It’s the ultimate compliment,” McCallum said. “He definitely deserves it. It is a tremendous honor.”

“We’re proud of him. His link goes deeper than anyone,” Alger said. “This will be a link to the basketball program forever. The names and faces will change, but every kid that comes through here will know about Pat McCann and that’s important.”

Alger also said that it adds a bit of mystique to a program that is well-known for its tradition and success throughout the state.

“It will be an honorable place to be,” Alger said.

“It brings us an identity. Some of the players now have never met him, but now it brings his name back into the picture. I hope these guys can put a name to a face now and give this gym an identity,” Devaney said.

McCann is a part of the St. Rose gymnasium like Babe Ruth is Yankee Stadium, or John Elway is Mile High Stadium. Their legends depend equally on each other.

McCann spent 30 years walking up and down the sidelines, helping to turn benches full of boys into young men. When the gym burned down in 1981, McCann had input into the construction of the gym that stands today between 7th and 8th Avenues, and his son Patrick even rushed to the burning gym to recover some of the spoils of the trophy case from the flames.

“St. Rose has always been my life. I’ve been there for 50 years. It’s a great honor,” McCann said.

McCann was quick to thank all the people that helped make a difference in his career.

“You don’t do something like this alone. It takes a lot of people, especially my family,” McCann said. “I never thought anything like this would happen. My mom and dad would be proud. If it wasn’t for them, God knows how different things would be.”

Perhaps the most telling statistic of McCann’s career isn’t the wins or losses, or the number of state championships he won. It’s the number of technical fouls he drew in 30 years — zero.

“I hope sportsmanship is the legacy I leave,” McCann said. “I tried to teach a respect for authority.”

“He was so evened tempered on the court. He was never too high or too low. He never lost his cool,” McCallum said. “He’s just a tremendous person.”

More than 12 years after McCann’s retirement, Devaney said he is still trying to step out from behind the shadow he cast back in 1988.

“I wish I had a dollar for every time my wife said I should be more like Pat,” Devaney said.

Sixty-seven-year-old Pat McCann spent nearly half his life walking across 8th Avenue in Belmar to go to work at St. Rose High School.

Saturday, during the halftime of St. Rose's 12 p.m. game against Red Bank Catholic, the St. Rose fym will be officially christened the McCann Activities and Athletic Center, or MAAC.

For McCann, the son of Irish immigrants, it's an honor that came completely unexpected, but one that will no doubt put afinal stamp on his illustrious coaching career.

"I said, 'you've got to be kidding.' Those were the first words out of my mouth," McCann said of the initial conversation he had with St. Rose Athletic Director Dick Alger, who began a push last winter to have the gym named in honor of McCann.

"I really appreciate it. I'm so thankful to Dick and the St. Rose administration. I was flabbergasted," McCann said. "Every day that it gets closer I get more and more butterflies. I have that old feeling."