A Matchup Years in the Making
JJ Klein, Army West Point Athletic Communications
Basketball has always been a family affair for the Magaritys. However, this weekend it will be a family feud.
Army West Point women’s basketball head coach Dave Magarity will square off against his daughter Maureen Magarity’s Holy Cross team in the first of two home-and-home series slated between the two programs. Saturday’s game is believed to be the first of its kind at the Division-I level with a father coaching opposite his daughter.
With Dave currently in his 15th season coaching on the women’s side and Maureen in her 11th overall season as a head coach and first at Holy Cross, it is reasonable to presume that this matchup has been in the making for years. However, it is a contest that the father-daughter duo has been avoiding since Maureen left her father’s staff to take the head coaching position at New Hampshire over a decade ago. This avoidance was a decision they arrived at with some help from Rita Magarity, Dave’s wife and Maureen’s mother.
“People laughed and joked about it, but I never really had the want to say, ‘No, we need to play a game dad,’” Maureen said. “It was always just, ‘I’m good with just scrimmaging and cheering you on.’”
“The scrimmaging was fine,” Rita noted. “But now that they have to play each other, in this profession it’s tough because there’s always going to be a winner and a loser. When your livelihood is winning of course that makes it extra hard.”
Basketball has been part of Maureen’s life since the day she was born. Literally. On the same day that she was born, her dad was coaching the St. Francis (Pa.) men’s team in a conference playoff game.
My dad just played a huge role in all these players’ lives and he’s still so close to so many players. I knew from an early age, I wanted to be a coach just like my dad.”
Once the Magarity family relocated to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where Dave had taken over as the head coach of the Marist men’s team, Maureen’s love for the sport became undeniably apparent. While still in elementary school, she took a big interest in her father’s career.
“I can remember her being a young kid just sitting with me watching film,” Dave said. “Watching opponents, watching recruits on film. She was very inquisitive and asked a lot of questions.”
“I have such a strong memory of my dad getting film on recruits or watching game tape. My sister and my brother would be running around playing and I’d sit and I’d watch,” Maureen said. “I wasn’t just watching to spend time with my dad. I was watching the film and I’d say, ‘I really like that guy, dad’ and ‘he’s got really good footwork’ and ‘he was a really good passer.’ Apparently, he would say ‘wow -- that was a really good evaluation.’”
Dave’s players were a fixture at the Magarity household – so much so that over the holidays the family noticed that in nearly all of its home videos one of his players was in the background.
“It was really special growing up,” Maureen said. “It really helped instill the love of the game for me. It wasn’t just basketball and games and Xs and Os. It was about coaching and shaping people’s lives. My dad just played a huge role in all these players’ lives and he’s still so close to so many players. I knew from an early age, I wanted to be a coach just like my dad.”
All the while, Maureen was budding into a star player. Thanks to her talent and size, she was constantly moved up in age groups. By the time she was in junior high school, she had earned a spot on the varsity team.
It was around that same time that she was asked to be a guest player on AAU team based out of the basketball powerhouse Christ the King High School located 85 miles south of Poughkeepsie in Queens, N.Y. There, she played alongside an abundance of talent, including 11-time WNBA All-Star Sue Bird. It did not take long until Maureen was bumped up from guest player to a permanent member of the team.
As luck would have it, her high school teammate Chrissy Vozab, who went on to play at Providence, was also asked to be a full-time player on the team, which allowed the families to split up travel. They would make the trek from Poughkeepsie to Queens roughly twice a week for practice.
“Some of my best memories as a kid were going on road trips with my dad and playing in games and traveling,” Maureen said.
“Driving down there and those trips, they were good times looking back at it,” Dave noted. “The kids were trying to do their homework with flashlights, so it was difficult. It was a lot of basketball talk.”
On one occasion Dave and Maureen traveled down to Madison Square Garden, where she was receiving recognition and they attended a Knicks game. However, the two left at halftime and made the over six-hour drive to Norfolk, Va., where Maureen was competing in a highly touted AAU tournament.
Now, having spent more than a decade as a Division-I head coach, Maureen has a greater appreciation for how her father managed to work the long trips into his busy schedule. However, back then as a young kid, more time in the car with her dad meant more time for his coaching tips.
“We laugh though still to this day. My dad is my dad. He’s brutally honest. My dad doesn’t sugar coat anything,” Maureen said laughing while recalling some of her father’s teaching moments in long the car rides. “And especially when it’s your dad and you’re a young kid or a teenager, you don’t want to hear it.”
In hindsight she values the tough love that formed her as a person and as a coach.
“I think that’s what’s helped me through my whole life. Not only as a basketball player, or as a young assistant coach and even now as a head coach. He tells it like it is,” Maureen said.
Maureen went on to play at Boston College before transferring to Marist, where her dad was still serving as the head coach of the men’s team. After her playing days were complete, she spent a year as a graduate assistant at Marist and then one as an assistant at Fairfield during the 2005-06 season.
Dave accepted a position as an assistant at Army under Maggie Dixon in the 2005-06 season. Towards the conclusion of the season, he had plans to work for the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets and Maureen was going to fill his position at Army and work under the rising star Dixon. Tragically, Dixon passed away at the age of 28 after leading the Black Knights to their first NCAA tournament berth at the Division-I level.
Following the loss of Dixon, Dave was offered the head coaching job at Army. He agreed under the condition that Maureen would join his coaching staff.
“I really wanted the opportunity for her to come here. I felt that I needed to have somebody that I could trust,” Dave said.
In their first season together, Army set a then-program record with 24 wins. In her four seasons as an assistant at Army, the Black Knights were 72-48.
The sacrifices that those cadet-athletes make on a daily basis and what they go on to do – it was just so valuable in shaping me into the person, not only the coach, that I am today.
One quality that was apparent to everyone close to the program was Maureen’s ability to calm down her sometimes-animated father.
“It was great having her because bottom line she knew me, she knew that she could talk to me. She knew she could calm me down,” Dave said. “She made me feel much more comfortable in that role. She was able to take me aside when I got a little bit crazy. She had that ability.”
“It was the best experience ever working for my dad,” Maureen said looking back fondly at her time spent at West Point. “My dad has always played such a huge role in my life. But at the same time he was always a men’s coach. I never thought that him becoming a women’s coach would be a reality or that I would actually work for him.”
At West Point she grew an incredible appreciation for the cadets and the 47-month experience.
“It was just such a great place. You can’t really describe West Point unless you work there,” Maureen said. “Just the experiences and the young women I was able to recruit and get an opportunity to coach and just the quality of people that I was around for four years, it really helped mold me and put things into to perspective. The sacrifices that those cadet-athletes make on a daily basis and what they go on to do – it was just so valuable in shaping me into the person, not only the coach, that I am today.”
Following her fourth season at Army, Maureen interviewed for multiple head coaching vacancies and ultimately landed the job at the University of New Hampshire. In her 10 seasons at the helm of that program, she won the second most games in program history with 146 wins and was named the Kay Yow National Coach of the Year in 2016-17 after leading the Wildcats to a 26-6 record and a berth in the WNIT.
The one thing that never happened in her time at New Hampshire was a regular season game with Army.
“We’ve joked a lot about it, but I had always felt strongly about never playing her,” Dave said. “However, we did scrimmage all the time when she got to New Hampshire.”
After years of avoiding the Magarity vs. Magarity matchup, the two are slated to coach against each other four times as league foes this season.
“It’s just funny where life brings you,” Maureen noted. “Not only do I get to play him, but I get to play him in the same league four times.”
Cue the trash talk.
According to Rita, Maureen bought everyone Holy Cross hats as a Christmas gift. The presents could be viewed as a retort to Dave’s comment of looking forward “to continue teaching her some hard lessons on the court” upon the announcement of her hiring at Holy Cross.
The grandchildren have become particularly invested as to who their grandmother will be rooting for. Rita maintains that she’s pulling for a 2-2 split. As for Saturday, she said, “Maybe I’ll wear my new Holy Cross hat for the first half and an Army one for the second.”
A message from the Magarity family now that we're 2?4? hours from tipoff!#GoArmy #IGotYourSix pic.twitter.com/hkyG3vTM56
— Army W.Basketball (@ArmyWP_WBB) January 8, 2021
Not everyone is sold on Rita’s answer. The running joke that Dave has used in the week leading up to the opening series is that if he wins, he may be locked out of his house and forced to sleep in his car.
While the two can laugh and exchange quick jabs at each other, both recognize the importance of all four of the games they’ll play against each other this season. Behind Navy, Dave has always viewed Holy Cross as Army’s top rival. Maureen has noted a shift in the way she watches her dad’s games.
“Just watching the Colgate games from this past weekend, I’ve noticed that how I am watching the games has changed already,” Maureen said. “I’m wanting my dad to still beat Colgate because it’s my dad, but I’m also watching both teams and breaking down their personnel.”
Both have used the word ‘surreal’ to describe the matchups awaiting them.
“For me, I think of all the years that she’s put in. It’s still hard for me not to think of her as a little girl playing CYO, but here she is,” Dave said. “She’s got a lot of experience and you know it’s time to throw the ball up.”
Years of watching film together, traveling to AAU practices and games, coaching with one another and being each other’s biggest fans have led to what is a very real matchup. Magarity vs. Magarity. Dave vs. Maureen. Father vs. Daughter. Army vs. Holy Cross.
For our sake, let’s hope Dave has some pillows and blankets in the car.