When Bill McKee decided to retire from coaching East Hampton High’s boys basketball team earlier this year, Kathy Masterson, the school district’s athletic director, persuaded Dave Conlon, who has a strong hoops resume that includes D-1 collegiate and professional competition in Europe and a stint as an assistant coach at the former University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (now a part of St. Joseph’s), to succeed him.
“It was always basketball,” the bearded, affable 6-foot-5-inch former University of Vermont “undersized strong forward” said, when asked earlier this week what sports he’d played growing up. “Basketball’s been part of my life — our father played with Larry Brown and Doug Moe at the University of North Carolina in the early ’60s before transferring to Iona, and my brother, Marty, played nine years in the N.B.A. . . . He was four years older and quite a bit taller, so I guess you could say playing one-on-one with him all those years in our driveway in Westchester helped toughen me up.”
The Conlons played their high school basketball at Archbishop Stepinac in White Plains, a state Catholic League power, after which Marty played at Providence College and Dave played at Vermont.
“After graduation I played two years professionally . . . it wasn’t at a high level . . . in Ireland and Germany. Marty played there after his N.B.A. career ended. My mother got us Irish passports — we were dual citizens — so we weren’t counted as Americans. European teams were limited to only two Americans then.”
He agreed that basketball was a democratic game. “When you have a team with good chemistry, because everyone is content with his role and willing to play that role, all of a sudden success comes, when everyone is sharing in the team’s success. You want to find players who fit well together. A perfect example is Jrue Holiday, the Celtics’ guard. They won an N.B.A. championship with him. He was the perfect fit, a gritty guy who can do it all, who can defend, pass, and, if need be, score — not a ‘me first’ type of player.”
When it was noted that he was inheriting a young team — three juniors, Colin Kelly, Toby Foster, and Mason Jefferson being the chief returnees — a team that did not, despite its spirited efforts, have much success last year, East Hampton’s new mentor said that “as a coach you want them to know there’s a lot of work to be done and to know that the schedule ahead won’t be easy, but you also want them to know that through practicing one day and one week at a time they’ll get better and begin to trust each other and develop chemistry. Any successful team I’ve ever been a part of has done those things. That’s what it takes, that’s what it’s all about.”
He and McKee, whose blessing he has, and whose telephone number he has on speed dial, have talked, Conlon said, about what they’d like to see in the coming season. “We’ll want to have a defensive identity, we’ll want to rebound, we’ll want to limit our turnovers and try to increase our shooting percentages from last year. No more offensive rebounds for the other teams — one shot and rebound. None of this is original, it’s what every coach focuses on, incremental improvements. And, hopefully, the trust and chemistry will come.”
Conlon, who moved here with his wife, Dr. Erin McGintee, and their three children in 2008, is not a new face when it comes to some of his players, whom he’s coached in S.Y.S. youth leagues — Kelly, and Carter Dickinson, who’s expected to add strength under the boards and provide senior leadership, being two of them. Dickinson did not play last year. Another possible addition, said Conlon, was Miles Menu, a 6-4 sophomore “who, though he’s got a swimmer’s build, can get up and down the court pretty fast.”
Conlon’s assistants will be Thomas Nelson, who worked with McKee, and who will continue overseeing the Biddy basketball games Saturday mornings at the John M. Marshall Elementary School, and Greg Condon. Louis O’Neal, one of the original state-champion Killer Bees, has replaced Joe McKee as the junior varsity boys coach.
“We’ll be very busy from the start,” the interviewee said. “Section XI has us starting a week later than in the past, so we’re already a little bit behind the eightball. We’ll have seven games in 10 days, between Dec. 10 [at Amityville] and Dec. 20.”
Two tournaments — the Kendall Madison tourney at East Hampton, with Bridgehampton, Shelter Island, and the Ross School (where Conlon coached the past two seasons), and at Southampton, with East Hampton, Westhampton Beach, and Friends Academy, will be played in that span.
“You want to develop your players the best you can,” Conlon said in parting. “It should be fun.”
