Joe Fagan, who coached Jackson Memorial High School’s boys basketball team to shared and outright Shore Conference A South Division titles the past four years, has resigned after six seasons to take the head coaching job at Neptune High School.
“It’s been my privilege to be involved with the Jackson kids and the Jackson community,” Fagan said. “It’s more than anyone could possibly think of in coaching. They’ve embraced me from the second year I’ve coached — the first year is always them seeing what it’s all about — and they’ve trusted me. They put egos behind them and put the team first. We accomplished great things together, and it’s something we all can be proud of. I expect that to continue at Jackson Memorial.”
Fagan will be a business teacher at Neptune, as he was at Jackson Memorial.
“I’ve met with the principal at Neptune and, in going around the school, I see the facilities and professionalism are the best in the state. I’m blown away with what they have here,” Fagan said. “But I do appreciate how they treated me at Jackson Memorial and gave me the opportunity to coach there.”
Fagan’s Jackson Memorial teams went 114-50, including reaching a fourth straight 20-win season at 22-7 last season when it won its second Shore Conference A South title in three years. The Jaguars won the WOBM Holiday Classic twice under Fagan and reached the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV finals three seasons ago, losing to Rancocas Valley Regional High School.
Fagan, who said he lives five minutes away from the school, was appointed unanimously by the Neptune Board of Education after it rejected renewing the contract of longtime coach Ken O’Donnell in a 6-3 vote. O’Donnell had coached Neptune’s boys since the 1990-91 season, compiling 340 wins after gaining 230 victories in nine seasons with Neptune’s girls.
O’Donnell was at the helm of two NJSIAA Group III champion boys basketball teams in 2002 and 2009. The 2002 team advanced to the Tournament of Champions finals. His other accolades include coaching four Shore Conference Tournament championship teams, most recently in 2012; five sectional champions, with the latest also coming two years ago; and eight division champions, including three straight from 2011-13.
O’Donnell is the only coach in state history to lead boys and girls teams to NJSIAA group titles.
Six former Jackson Memorial players are playing college basketball, led most recently by Eric Foster, who is heading to the University of Delaware, and the McDonnell brothers — Jimmy, who is in a final redshirt graduate season at Temple University, and Brandon, who is entering his junior year at Dartmouth College. Brian Kenny is beginning his third year at NCAA Division II Caldwell College, Pete Hetzel is at The College of New Jersey and Aaron Burroughs is at DeSales University.
Fagan’s coaching style is typically characterized by a tenacious, half-court, man-toman defense and an offense that looks to run when it can.
“My teams will guard you and pressure you,” Fagan said. “We’ve had to rely on really good half-court defense, and at Neptune, we’ll probably expand the pressure. But it’s your half-court defense that wins games. We want to make you work on every possession.
“Offensively, we want to push the ball as much as possible. We did that at Jackson Memorial and we’ll do that at Neptune — no more and no less. It’s just that at Neptune, guys can get to the basket faster.”
Fagan said he has had some prior experience coaching Neptune students on AAU basketball teams.
“I understand their skill set,” he said.
This week, Fagan is starting his first of three weeks of summer basketball camps at Spring Lake Heights.