The sport of college basketball takes all kinds of forms across the country, but Philadelphia basketball will never be the same following the retirement of Fran Dunphy. The current head coach at La Salle announced he would be stepping away, assuming a special assistant role elsewhere with his alma mater after three seasons leading the Explorers’ basketball program.
A native of the outskirts of Philadelphia, Dunphy played basketball at La Salle way back in the late 60’s and early 70’s before beginning his coaching career as an assistant at Army. He worked briefly as a high school coach in Philadelphia before spending another decade as a collegiate assistant, including multiple stints back at his alma mater.
Legendary La Salle head coach Fran Dunphy will retire from his position at the conclusion of the 2024-25 season.
— La Salle Athletics (@GoExplorers) February 20, 2025
📰: https://t.co/F4agPhHM8a pic.twitter.com/pOFkLuaIpL
He became synonymous with Philadelphia’s Big 5 scene, beginning his head coaching career at Penn in 1989. Dunphy spent 17 years with the Quakers before landing at Temple for another 13 years. He stepped down from the Owls back in 2019 and was out of the game for three years, but returned to La Salle in 2022 for the final leg of his coaching career.
Years ago, in the pre NIL era when kids got paid under the table, a guy who was close w/Fran Dunphy told me Temple couldn’t get a particular kid because “Dunph won’t pay.” In a game where almost everyone “cheated” at least a bit, Fran never did. Still won 600+ games. Legend.
— Curry Hicks Sage (@CurryHicksSage) February 20, 2025
During that long career, the entirety of which was spent in the Big 5, Dunphy won over 600 games and made 17 appearances in the NCAA Tournament. He sent many of those Penn and Temple teams to the Big Dance, though lacked breakthrough success in the Tourney, winning just three Tournament games across his career. Regardless, he was an icon at each of those schools and touched many lives in the process.
He didn’t have quite the same success at La Salle, with the Explorers sitting at 12-15 after two previous seasons with similar records. He couldn’t make the same impact in the A-10 as he had more than a decade earlier at Temple, but that doesn’t downplay what Dunphy accomplished in his career. He steps aside from coaching at 76 years old, one of the oldest collegiate coaches in recent years.
Congrats to Fran Dunphy, who guided Temple to eight NCAA Tournament bids and is the Big 5's all-time wins leader, on announcing his retirement at the end of the 2024-25 season!
— Temple Men's Basketball (@TUMBBHoops) February 20, 2025
A Philadelphia Icon.#Team129 pic.twitter.com/UbA7PBis1g
At the same time, La Salle now gets a head start on their own head coaching search, with a very important hire ahead. The Explorers had that memorable trip to the Sweet Sixteen as a 13-seed back in 2013, but that remains this program’s only trip to the Big Dance in the last 30 years. It’s been an entire decade since La Salle was over .500 and they’ll need a new coach with a winning pedigree.
Bringing in a Philadelphia great with La Salle experience didn’t quite turn the tide, though a coach in his 70’s in this new age of college basketball might not have been the best choice for longterm success. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Explorers looking for a rising assistant at a prominent program or perhaps a great D2 head coach to fill their opening, though whoever’s next has their work cut out for them.