When you consider the fact that over the last 40 years, Jim Quinn has made more impacts on the basketball program than any of the players, finding a successor can seem a daunting, if not impossible task.
Quinn, the second-winningest coach in Catholic league history with 426 chose to step down this year, packing up the bags and heading to Florida with his wife.
The question is what do you do when your House is in need of repair? You look in the directory, of which the Flyers have one of the largest: those long corridors walled with frame after frame of alumni – Quinn himself was one, after all – which the school has a panache for retaining and recruiting back to itself.
Quinn has had numerous assistant coaches through his decades – many of which went onto their own coaching careers at the college level – and while several of the members on the 2011-12 squad were betting that current assistant Daniel Feeney would be getting the gig, the school announced this past Friday that they would be bringing back Bob Paul, a member of the Chaminade Class of 1992, who was last on the line from 2000-08 at the varsity level and head freshman coach.
During that time the Flyers won two NSCHSAA championships in 2000 and 2003, the latter of which was a state championship and a league title in 2008.
Paul also served as assistant coach for the Pioneers of C.W. Post during the 2006-10 seasons, including an appearance in the Elite Eight of the 2008 NCAA Tournament.
He has served as director of men’s basketball operations at Iona since 2010.
A Plainview resident, Paul holds a history and pre-med degree from Boston University and education masters from C.W. Post.
