Coaching is all in family for Donlon
As a 7-year-old and the son of a college basketball assistant coach, Billy Donlon was already acting like a coach.
There is a family photo of little Billy in the early 1980s when his father, Bill Donlon Sr., was coaching under Rick Pitino at Providence. Before tipoff of a Big East battle with Georgetown, the captains, including Patrick Ewing, gathered with the officials for the pregame meet-and-greet.
“There I am, in that photo, right in the middle of the circle,” said Donlon, a former Glenbrook North star and the coach at MissouriKansas City. “I was taking it all in.”
There has hardly been a day in Donlon’s life when he didn’t know what he wanted to be.
“If my mom were still alive and you were to ask her, she would tell you, ‘In the womb,’ ” Donlon said of when he knew that he wanted to be a coach.
There was a very short phase where Donlon thought about getting out of coaching, which was right after Wright State let him go as coach after finishing the 2015-16 season with 22 victories and a 13-5 record in the Horizon League.
But that was short-lived. Donlon was on the bench as John Beilein’s assistant at Michigan two months after being fired by Wright State. He then spent the 2017-18 and 201819 seasons as an assistant for Chris Collins at Northwestern before being named the coach at UMKC a little over a year ago.
Donlon grew up in a basketball home, so coaching and the life that comes with it was always front and center. His dad spent five years at Providence, where he was part of the Final Four team in 1987. He also was an assistant at Northwestern from 1987 to ’94.
During those years at Northwestern, young Billy was a star basketball player at Glenbrook North. It just so happened to be the high school in Illinois that has more basketball coaching connections and lineage than any other in the state.
For starters, Brian James was the coach at Glenbrook North in the early 1990s when Collins and Donlon came through the Northbrook school. Collins, beginning his eighth season as coach at Northwestern, is the son of basketball legend and former NBA coach Doug Collins.
Glenbrook North was the start of a coaching career for James that includes 14 years in the NBA and the last six as an assistant to Collins at Northwestern.
David Weber took over the Glenbrook North program and won big, including a state title in 2005, before retiring after this past season. Weber is the brother of former Illinois coach and current Kansas State coach Bruce Weber.
David also coached legendary prep player Jon Scheyer, who is an assistant at Duke and primed to be at the helm of a Division I program sooner than later.
Glenbrook North is certainly the epicenter of basketball coaching in Illinois. But beyond Glenbrook North, the state has been a springboard for coaches. So many former high school players from Illinois are scattered about the country as D-I coaches, including Donlon.