More than 20 years since he last coached in Southwest Florida – taking Teddy Dupay, Earnest Graham and Mariner High to the top ranking in the state – Tim Maloney is returning to his former home.
Maloney, a New York native who was an assistant coach at Iona College in New York last year after eight seasons on Baylor's staff, has been hired to take over as the Dunbar High boys basketball coach after long-time coach Andre McGill retires in June.
“Mr. Maloney has had an impressive career not only as a basketball coach but also as a life coach,” Dunbar Principal Carl Burnside said in an announcement. “We look forward to having him lead our boys basketball program for the years to come.”
Maloney, a 1982 graduate of Manhattanville College, was hired at Mariner in 1993 and took a team that went 7-18 a year prior to an 18-7 mark, a program record to that point.
The Tritons went 22-7 a year later before going 33-3 and reaching the state finals in his third season, 1995-96, when Mariner was ranked No. 1 in Florida and No. 16 nationally.
“He is the closest thing that I have had to a father,” said Graham, 38, who went on to star in football at the University of Florida and play nine seasons in the NFL with Tampa Bay before returning to Southwest Florida full time, the last four years as football coach at North Fort Myers.
“I’ve been trying to get him since I first got here. I just think he is going to be a great asset to the community. The way he is with kids, it’s special.”
After three seasons at Mariner, Maloney was an assistant coach at Buffalo in 1996-97 before moving on to join Billy Donovan’s staff for six seasons at Florida. He helped the Gators reach the national championship game in 2000 and recruit the second-ranked class in the nation in 2002.
He spent two years as an assistant and then associate head coach at Eastern Kentucky and three seasons as associate head coach at UMass under Travis Ford before joining Baylor in 2009.
Maloney, who has a master’s degree in counseling and has extensive international experience as well in Europe, China, Turkey and Mexico, has looked at returning to Southwest Florida in the past.
He applied for the vacant FGCU job in 2011 when the program first became a full member of Division-I. Former Florida State assistant Andy Enfield was hired. He again was recommended by others for the position two years later when Enfield left for USC and Joe Dooley eventually was hired from Kansas.
“There isn’t a man that I’ve ever played for that has the unquestioned integrity that Tim Maloney has,” Graham wrote in an email to FGCU athletic director Ken Kavanagh in 2011. “There is also not a man that a generation of kids in Southwest Florida are more familiar with than him.”
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