DETROIT — “I just felt it was time.”
Time couldn’t come soon enough for basketball coaches in the Catholic High School League’s Central Division for Pat Donnelly to retire from coaching University of Detroit Jesuit the last 17 years.
Since Donnelly arrived in 2008, his teams created havoc for the four other squads in regular and postseason confrontations.
Consider:
The Cubs were 34-9 against Novi Detroit Catholic Central, 33-11 versus Warren De La Salle Collegiate, 31-8 against Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice, and 29-14 versus Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Prep. U of D was 7-0 against the Toledo schools who joined the CHSL two years ago.
That adds up to 134-42, a sizable chunk of Donnelly’s overall record of 317-86.
“Well, you’re keeping better records than I did. I wasn’t aware of any of that,” Donnelly says.
“Pat Donnelly set the standard of excellence,” said St. Mary’s coach, Todd Covert, whose teams were 9-15 in the past 10 years against the Cubs. “No program has sustained excellence like U of D Jesuit under Coach Donnelly. Greatness does not happen in one year. It’s built through decades of consistency, discipline, and purpose. Season after season, year after year — nobody did it better.”
“What a run!” said Brother Rice coach Rick Palmer (5-16 vs. U of D in the last seven years). “Coach Donnelly was and is the gold standard for the CHSL Central. Competing against him was extremely difficult and frustrating but equally rewarding. You are CHSL GOAT (Greatest Of All Time)!”
“The first year I was here,” Donnelly says, “we had really a senior-heavy team. We had two freshmen on the team who ended up being very good players for us, Chris Jenkins, who’s the new head coach here, and Cameron Fowler. So that second year Chris and Cam both became starters. We started three freshmen and two sophomores.” Their 7-12 record was the only losing record in Donnelly’s career at U of D.
Coaching in the Catholic League “was a phenomenal experience,” Donnelly says. “Really, really good coaches that challenged, really good players. I will venture to state that the Catholic League from top to bottom has been and is the best league in the state of Michigan.
And I will even go further and say that it is one of the better leagues in the Midwest.
“The preparedness you needed every game was something that challenged you on a daily basis. I think it made you better. The league makes the players better, prepares them extremely well, and I also think it made the coaches better.”
Donnelly maintains that the style of play changes as the coaches change. “When I first got here there were coaches who were a lot more deliberate. That was something you had to prepare extremely well for. I like the up-tempo style of play. They had to adjust to our style as well. New guys came in. Their styles were a little bit more up tempo. That’s kind of the way basketball has gone.”
The seasons of 2012 through 2019 might be considered a golden era of basketball for U of D with a remarkable 161-24 record, 65-6 in the Central Division. The Cubs captured eight CHSL championships, 13 district titles, six regional titles, four Final Four appearances, and the MHSAA State Division I Championship in 2016, finishing a perfect 28-0. That team was ranked fourth nationally.
Donnelly has been named CHSL Coach of the Year five times and was honored as Michigan Coach of the Year and National Coach of the Year in 2016. He was inducted into the CHSL Hall of Fame in 2023.
“We’ve had close to 50 guys play college ball, from the junior college level to the top level, and a few pros, too,” Donnelly says.
U of D Jesuit principal Chris Smith, Ph.D., announced April 29 that Donnelly was stepping away from coaching basketball to take over the duties of director of athletics, and that Chris Jenkins, Donnelly’s assistant for four years, would be his successor. Jenkins (2012) played at Colorado and University of Detroit Mercy and then professionally overseas.
“Our school has so much confidence in Coach Donnelly’s ability to support all our athletic programs with the expertise he has from decades of coaching at a championship level," Smith said. "Coaches and students tell me regularly how they feel greatly supported by Coach Donnelly.”
“I don’t call this a retirement,” Donnelly says. “I’ve been around basketball pretty much my whole life. It’s been a passion of mine. It’ll be an adjustment. I’m going to hand off as much as I can from a basketball standpoint. I’ll be a resource for Chris, but it’s his program.”
Before arriving at U of D, Donnelly, born in Cleveland 59 years ago but reared in nearby Rocky River on the shores of Lake Erie, coached for nearly two decades at Manchester University of Pennsylvania, Akron, and Elmira College, and two years at Grosse Pointe North.
Why retire? “Nothing happened. I just felt it was time," he says. "It’s a big time commitment to do it the right way. A lot of time away from the family. I’m gonna be a grandfather for the first time in the fall.”
Donnelly married Jen, a special education teacher, in 1993. “I’ll have more time watching my kids do their jobs in men’s basketball at the college level. My daughter Claire is director of operations at University of Nevada, Reno, where Steve Alford is coach, and my son Colin is video coordinator at MSU.”
As far as his new duties as AD, “I’m hoping we can get all our athletic programs have the same type of success that basketball has had,” Donnelly says. “That’s the goal: we can be good in everything we offer and that our students have a great athletic experience as well as having a great academic and spiritual experience.”
“I was joking with (CC basketball coach) Torey Jackson. He said, ‘I’m sorry I won’t see you around as much.’ I said, ‘Oh, you’re going to see me. I’m just not going to be red-faced in front of the bench. I’ll be sitting behind the scorer’s table with a Diet Coke in my hand.’”
Contact Don Horkey at [email protected].
