John Chaney and Conshohocken

John Chaney and Conshohocken

2/3/2021

If you ever wandered into the Albert C Donofrio Tournament at the Fellowship House in Conshohocken you may have caught sight of John Chaney. Yes that John Chaney of Temple University fame.

My memories of Coach Chaney came from watching Temple basketball through the years. We never cheered on only one local college hoops team, we wanted all of them to do well. Besides Nova wining it all in the mid 80’s Temple had solid squads year after year so we found ourselves rooting for Temple more years in the NCAA March Madness tournament. I had my favorite players over the years, but we can get back to them and focus on Coach Chaney. After all, under Coach Chaney Temple was in 17 NCAA Tournaments through his career. His Temple teams reached the elite 8, 5 times. He retired with 741 career wins as a college coach.

I was a little shocked when I saw him in the 2 part movie, Black Magic about basketball. I’m in my mid 40’s and simply knew him as the Temple basketball coach. It was great seeing him as a star athlete and catching a glimpse of him before he was Mr Temple. It gave me a greater appreciation for him and how he taught the game of basketball.

For a number of years college coaches could come to the Donofrio Tournament to watch and sometimes talk to the student athletes from the area. Coach John Chaney was often there in April to see the players that he would like to bring to Temple, or possibly have to play against if they ended up at one of the other big 5 schools.

The photo taken by Jack Coll shows Coach John Chaney at the Albert C. Donofrio Tournament held at the Fellowship House in Conshohocken. We are saddened by his loss.