Jack Donohue was the 11th head coach in Holy Cross Basketball history, Donohue, the man best known as the high school basketball coach of NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
A 1952 graduate of Fordham University, Donohue began his coaching career in 1954 at St. Nicholas Tolentine High School in the Bronx, going 87-16 in four years. He and Alcindor then grabbed the basketball world’s attention at Power Memorial Academy as Alcindor-led squads won 71 straight games and helped Donohue compile a 163-30 mark. Donohue’s last six Holy Cross teams posted winning marks and during the 1967-68 campaign, his Crusaders faced the Alcindor-led UCLA Bruins at Madison Square Garden, with John Wooden’s national champions winning the game, 90-67. Current HC head coach Ralph Willard played under Donahue for two seasons.
In 1972, Donohue was named coach of the Canadian National Team, a post he held through 1988. His 17 years as head coach marked the longest tenure in amateur or professional Canadian sports. Four years after becoming coach, he took a team which hadn’t qualified for the 1968 Olympics to a fourth-place finish in the Montreal Olympiad. Canada continued to improve under Donohue, placing fifth in the 1981 World University Games, losing only to the Soviets. Canada was sixth in the 1982 World Championships and strengthened its spot as a world power the following year by winning the Gold Medal at the World University Games in Edmonton, defeating the U.S. and Yugoslavia in the medal round. Donohue guided the Canadians to a fourth-place finish in the 1984 Olympics and announced his retirement following Canada’s participation in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea. For his efforts, Donohue was inducted into the Olympic Hall of Fame.
Donohue was inducted into the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. He was awarded one of the Governor General’s Canada 125 Medals and was a recipient of the King Clancy Award for his work with the disabled. Coach Donohue was also involved with the Vancouver Grizzlies as their director of international relations and director of Canadian development. He is a member of New York City’s Coaches Hall of Fame
"Coach Donohue was a very good coach but was even a better man," said Willard. "He was someone who cared about his players and did so many great things in his life. To take Canada’s basketball program from where it was to where it is now is such an incredible accomplishment. Playing for him for two years, I learned a lot not only about basketball but about life. He truly was a great man."