McCaffery Embraces Being A 'Philly Guy'

Iowa coach will take team to the Palestra for Saturday's game against Penn State.

Fran McCaffery embraces the description.

The Iowa men’s basketball coach grew up in Philadelphia, played his college basketball career in Philadelphia, started his coaching career there.

So yeah, he’s a “Philly guy.”

McCaffery and the Hawkeyes are going to be playing Saturday’s game against Penn State at the Palestra, a historic venue for Philly hoops.

“I know,” said guard Connor McCaffery, Fran’s son, “it means a lot to him.”

McCaffery said early in his Thursday press conference that Saturday’s game was a big deal just because it was a road game that will start the final 18 games of the Hawkeyes’ Big Ten schedule.

“I have a lot of family and friends there, grew up with that place being a big part of my life,” he said. “I had an opportunity ... that was our home arena (when he played at Penn). My college coach is going to be there. A lot of those types of things. But I'm pretty good at kind of separating that from the task at hand. It's a big game on our schedule. It's a ranked opponent, a team I have a lot of respect for. They're playing extremely well. My responsibility is just to make sure we go there and play well.”

But as he answered more questions, it was obvious that this game has a bigger meaning.

McCaffery has coached at the Palestra before — he was an assistant at Penn and he has taken teams there at his other head coaching stops.

But much of McCaffery’s basketball life has been shaped by his time at the arena, whether as a fan, as a player, and as a coach.

Connor has heard the stories.

“I’ve heard countless stories about games, people that he’s seen, just the atmosphere, the type of games that have gone on there,” he said. “The stories about him sneaking in there, him getting in there for free with all of his buddies, all those kinds of things, I think that all goes into it.”

“You know, my memories are a little bit different because it starts with my mom and dad bringing myself and my brother to games when we were kids,” Fran McCaffery said. “You want to sit up in the student section, you want to watch the games, you want to throw streamers, watch the really good players, maybe get to meet them, something like that.

“And then as a high school player, you want to get your team to the Palestra. Here it's kind of, ‘We want to get to the state tournament. We want to get to Wells Fargo Arena (in Des Moines).’ There you want to get to the Palestra. That's where you want to go. So I had the opportunity to do that.

Then you hope to be recruited by one of those five teams so you get to play there. Well, I got recruited by the one that that's our home arena, so we practiced there every day and played pickup there in the summer, that kind of thing. So, there's so many incredible memories.”

McCaffery remembered how he would spend an entire day at the arena, because there would often be doubleheaders. Saturday is a day-night doubleheader — the Hawkeyes play the Nittany Lions in the afternoon, then Penn and Princeton play the night game.

“You stayed there for six, seven hours, and you watched four teams play, and nobody left,” McCaffery said. “It wasn't like, OK, I'm rooting for Villanova, they play in the first game so I'm going to dinner while Penn plays South Carolina. It wasn't like that. Everybody stayed, watched both games. There was actually a TV package, before cable, you could actually watch those games on those old UHF stations. So if you grew up in Philadelphia, you watched all the games, you knew all the players, you knew all the coaches.”

And then McCaffery went through the names of all of the coaches.

“Chuck Daly was coaching at Penn,” McCaffery said. “Rollie Massimino won the national championship (at Villanova). (Temple coaches) Harry Litwack and John Chaney are in the Hall of Fame. Paul Westhead revolutionized how to play fast while he was at LaSalle. Jack Ramsay is in the Hall of Fame. Jack McKinney ended up coaching the Lakers. Jimmy Lynam was a head coach in the NBA for many years after coaching at St. Joe's. Bob Weinhauer took us to the Final Four — he will be at the game. He was my coach; he'll be at the game on Saturday.

“So it was a very — and remains a very — close-knit basketball community in Philadelphia that would convene every Saturday night at the Palestra, but often times on Tuesday or Wednesday during the week, they also played doubleheaders during the week.”

Connor McCaffery will be in the starting lineup on Saturday. Patrick McCaffery, another of Fran’s sons, is a freshman with the Hawkeyes and will be on the bench as he continues to recover from various health issues.

“Well, I think it's one of the things that excited me about the opportunity,” Fran McCaffery said about the chance to coach his sons there. “I had to make sure it was in the best interest of our program, but like I said, it's Penn State's home game. They can choose to play it wherever they want to, and we'll show up. But I took (Connor and Patrick) there a few years ago, and we toured the Palestra and we toured the campus, so we've been there a few times. They've not seen a game there, so that'll be new.”

“Him coaching me, in this arena, I think it’s something that’s part of the reason he agreed to play this game in the first place,” Connor said. “I’m definitely a little bit curious. I’m expecting a very live atmosphere, live intensity. They’ve got guys from Philly coming into play, my dad being from Philly, me going back to play in this place, we have East Coast guys who will have family there. It’s one of the greatest places to play a basketball game.”

Fran McCaffery went back to the coaching names he mentioned. They, too, shared the same title he appreciates.

“Let's say you were at the Final Four and you're talking to basketball people,” he said. “They will refer to all of those people that I just mentioned, myself included, ‘Well, he's a Philly guy.’ So everybody understands what that means.”