the coach

How do we measure a lifetime spent coaching? Surely the easiest way to quantify a coach’s success is to look at wins and losses. But we need to look beyond that low-hanging fruit, look at the impact a coach has outside the arena, to really understand what endears them to a team, a university, a city, and a community. 

That’s certainly the case for Daemen University’s Mike MacDonald, who, over the course of the last 35 years, has built a reputation as one of college basketball’s “good guys.” Yes, the wins are there (nearing 440 as MacDonald begins his 27th season as a head coach). In fact, he’s one of only a handful of coaches in history with at least 100 wins across all three NCAA divisions. But there’s more to his story than the statistics. 

Start with his personality. You would be hard-pressed to find someone with a negative thing to say about the man who, prior to taking over at Daemen, led the men’s basketball programs at Canisius College and Medaille College. Even news reporters once critical of him and his Canisius teams will tell you that they consider him a friend, and it says a lot about MacDonald that he reciprocates those feelings. But that’s who Mike MacDonald is. He’s a man who lives by the Golden Rule. The contact list in his phone is seemingly endless, but whether he’s picking up a call from longtime friend Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN or from one of his team’s student managers, they’re getting the same guy–truthful, thoughtful, compassionate, and genuine.

That kind of authenticity is appreciated here in MacDonald’s adopted hometown of Buffalo, New York, “City of Good Neighbors.” MacDonald embodies that spirit, the occasional verbal spat with a referee notwithstanding. He has consistently demonstrated an ability to give back to his community–whether through Game Changers, the program he developed alongside Buffalo’s longtime mayor Byron Brown and the local Drug Enforcement Agency office, which uses basketball as a means to provide academic and athletic opportunities in underserved communities–or through his work with Coaches vs. Cancer and the American Cancer Society. 

You can tell that these kinds of things are important to MacDonald. “The good ones do things for themselves…the great ones do things for others,” reads a sign in his office. 

Perhaps his greatest impact is seen and felt in his basketball camps. Throughout his career, from Canisius to Medaille to Daemen, and most recently under the umbrella of his own LLC–the MacDonald Basketball Academy–MacDonald has exposed countless youths to the game of basketball. More than 300 kids pack into Daemen’s Lumsden Gymnasium for each session of his summer basketball camp, by far the most of any such camp in the area. And his camps aren’t just a summer phenomenon. Camps and clinics continue through fall weekends–“Little Dribblers,” “Middle Dribblers,” and “Sunday School” as the coach calls them. That’s somewhat unheard of in the realm of collegiate sports camps, which are oftentimes operated as a cheaper alternative to daytime childcare. 

“I think he’s the best camp director in the world,” says Paul Schintzius, a longtime friend of MacDonald’s and former high school coach, now Executive Vice President at ADPRO Sports. “I really think he looks at the camps as his way to give back to the community. Does Mike MacDonald, in his mid 50s, really need to be in a gym at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning teaching dribbling to kids as young as three years old? No way. But he does it, because he’s always been a guy that wants to help other people.”

The calling to be helpful to others lends itself to MacDonald’s coaching philosophy, too. He is what you might call a relationship-driven coach, aiming to be transformational rather than transactional. 

“I tell every recruit that comes on a visit here that their time in our program will be judged as successful based on two things,” MacDonald says. “First, do they graduate? Second, do I get invited to their wedding? If those two things happen, then I feel as if we’ve done a good job as a coaching staff. How many points they score, how many rebounds they get, how many games we win, that’s all secondary to the overall experience they have as a student-athlete.” 

That’s not to say the approach is easy. Relationships with young adults whom you’re pushing to be the best versions of themselves can be difficult at times, but MacDonald has a way of reaching his players. 

Perhaps drawing on his own experience as a father has helped. Mike and his wife Maura have raised four sons in their Eggertsville home. Their eldest, Matthew, was a co-captain of the basketball team at the University of Pennsylvania and now works in the front office for the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets. The second, Patrick, became a Division III All-American at the SUNY Maritime College and is now an officer in the U.S. Navy. The youngest two, Nicholas and Mark, are still finishing up their schooling, Nick at Daemen (where he plays for his dad) and Mark at Canisius High School, where his older brothers also went. 

In MacDonald’s eyes, the relationship between coach and player is like the relationship between parent and child in that it doesn’t end. Sure, it changes after graduation, but he continues to be a mentor, friend, and resource for his players years after that, no matter the circumstances. His reunions with former players are often set against joyous occasions, weddings and alumni functions. Sometimes they aren’t as joyous, but MacDonald is there regardless.

When Brian Dux, a star point guard during MacDonald’s tenure at Canisius, was severely injured in an overseas car crash, his former coach was among the first to see him when he returned stateside. To this day, some 16 years after the accident, MacDonald still wears a blue wristband emblazoned with “#12 Dux” in yellow lettering, in support of his former player.

Several years ago, I observed MacDonald in an interview with a local reporter doing a story on Dux’s ability to coach high school basketball despite the physical challenges that resulted from his accident. MacDonald’s face lit up as he recalled memories of coaching Dux, describing his former point guard as the heroic side of the Pied Piper, someone who attracts others into their orbit just through their personality and good character. The same can be said about the coach. People are quick to shake his hand. They jump at the opportunity to be in his presence. He possesses an uncanny ability to relate to people.

“He checked on me every single day,” Schintzius says of his friend’s presence as he himself recovered from a recent health challenge. “That’s just who he is. He’s not only a great coach, but he’s a great husband, a great father, and someone that you aspire to be like.” 

Maybe it’s his upbringing as the fourth of seven children in the Ridgefield, Connecticut, home of Pat and the late Jack MacDonald. Maybe it’s his experience as a young assistant coach under the legendary John Beilein. Maybe it’s the strength of his relationship with Maura and their love for their boys. Maybe it’s a combination of all that. 

One thing is certain: There’s something about Mike MacDonald that sets him apart–as a coach, as a friend, and as a leader in his community.