FAIRBORN, Ohio -- Billy Donlon dreamed of becoming a division one head basketball coach. He grew up in a basketball household, becoming a head coach was practically in his genes. Donlon said, “If you ask my parents they would tell you I knew I wanted to be coach when I was in the womb.”
His father, his mother and his sisters all played the game, along with the vast majority of his extended family. One of his uncles attended the Naval Academy and played against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Donlon attributes his father, Bill Donlon, and his mentor, Brad Brownell, as having the greatest influence on his career.
In 2010, Donlon fulfilled his dream of becoming a Division I head coach at the young age of 33, but he was disappointed that the moment he had been waiting for didn’t greet him with the feeling of satisfaction.
Sadly, Donlon was distracted. His mother, Maryann Donlon, was too sick to attend his first game. He didn’t realize how important it was for him to share this accomplishment with his family until it wasn’t an option.
Donlon was just returning from playing professional basketball in Europe when Maryann was first diagnosed with triple-negative stage 4 breast cancer in 2002. Donlon gave up playing in Europe after being offered the assistant coaching position at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, who was at the time coached by Brownell.
“The survival rate beyond three years was below 10 percent,” said Donlon. Five years later in 2007, as Donlon was finishing his first season as assistant coach at Wright State University, they had just returned from the NCAA Tournament and Maryann was cancer free after several rounds of harsh radiation and chemotherapy treatments.
Donlon described his mother as an incredible fighter, “The first two years were hard but after that treatments seemed to be working and my mom was a battler and she was always a very positive person which is one of the reasons she beat it for so long.”
For a while things were going great, Donlon was enjoying his time at Wright State with Brownell and his mother was healthy again.
But in June of 2009, while Maryann was visiting Billy in Ohio, she had trouble getting out of bed. Tests from the emergency room revealed that the cancer had metastasized into her bones. Over the next eight months the doctor’s remained positive and after more chemotherapy treatments Maryann’s health was in good shape. She was still able to attend games in Fairborn, but in March of 2010, the cancer reached one of the deadliest places it could go, the blood stream.
Just a month later, Donlon was promoted to head coach of Wright State University. “I come from a huge basketball family and my dream comes true to become a division one head coach and to be fortunate enough to be a head coach at a place like Wright State, where the people are incredible and it’s a remarkable place to work. To become a head coach at a relatively young age I was really blessed. The problem was, I knew what was going on with my mom, and she wasn’t able to come to my press conference.”
Staying focused and doing his job to the best of his ability were Donlon’s greatest challenges during this time period. When Donlon was busy with recruitment in July, his mother’s doctor informed the family that Maryann had only six weeks left to live. She passed on September 3, 2010.
While reflecting on what he experienced during his first year as a head coach Donlon said, “Just when you think things are at a great positive height, something occurs that can destroy you. I would do anything to have my mom back. I would work any other job and give this up. It put things in perspective for me.”
Donlon is in his fourth year as head coach of Wright State and still carries his mother’s memory with him during games. If you see Coach Donlon wearing a pink tie during tomorrow’s Horizon League Men’s Basketball Championship, it is to celebrate the life of his mother Maryann, who taught him to be self accountable, value good work ethic and to be generous.
As Wright State prepares for its second straight year in the conference championship, Donlon’s personal challenges resonate in his team’s resilience: “Everybody in life is presented with all kinds of challenges and you’ve got to do the best you can to get through them.”
Tags: Wright State - Men's Basketball
