Penn hires former Iowa coach McCaffery to lift fallen program back into Ivy contention
Penn fired Steve Donahue earlier this month after the Quakers went 8-19 in his ninth season on the job.
McCaffery played three seasons with the Quakers and led the Ivy League in assists (105) and steals (51) as a senior in 1981-82. Penn went 36-6 in Ivy League play across McCaffery's three seasons, winning three conference titles. He played in two NCAA Tournaments.
McCaffery hopes he can find that kind of success again at Penn, which has made the tournament only twice since Fran Dunphy left after 2006. Penn made one NCAA Tournament appearance during Donahue's tenure when it won the Ivy League Tournament on their home court at the Palestra in Philadelphia in 2018. As a No. 16 seed, the team lost to top-seeded Kansas in the first round.
The Quakers went 131-130 overall and 63-63 in conference play since Donahue took over in 2015.
'My vision is to return Penn to prominence in the Ivy League and beyond and bring an exciting style of play to the Palestra,' McCaffery said.
The 65-year-old McCaffery was Iowa's all-time wins leader and longest-tenured coach in program history after 15 years at the school.
McCaffery was head coach at Lehigh, UNC Greensboro and Siena before former Iowa athletic director Gary Barta hired him in 2010. He led the Hawkeyes to eight 20-win seasons and won a game in four of seven NCAA Tournament appearances from 2012-13 to 2022-23.
McCaffery is 548-384 overall, a .588 winning percentage.
Iowa was ranked as high as No. 3 nationally during both the 2016 and 2021 seasons. The Hawkeyes were ranked for 16 consecutive weeks in 2019, the final nine weeks of the 2020 season, went wire-to-wire in 2021 in the top 15 of the AP Poll for the first time since the 1989 campaign, and ranked No. 16 in the final poll in 2022.
'Fran has had success at every level of Division I and is passionate about restoring our program to glory,' Penn athletic director Alanna Wren said Thursday. 'His energy and enthusiasm for leading young men was apparent throughout the process and he has proven to be committed to player development and relationship-building with his student-athletes throughout his storied career.'
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According to a summary of her statement provided in Lyon's affidavit, she said Gardner fondled her during exercises, repeatedly touching her vagina; rubbed her back and butt and discussed his sex life; and made her do inappropriate stretches that exposed her privates. She told police she suspected he used his cellphone to film her in that position. Reached by the AP, the teen's mother declined comment. The mother told police she was interested in a monetary settlement with Chow's because the gym 'had been made aware of the complaints and they did nothing to stop them,' according to Lyon's affidavit. The gym didn't return AP messages seeking comment. It took 16 months after the teen's 2024 report for the FBI to arrest Gardner, who made an initial court appearance in Des Moines on Friday on a charge of producing visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, which can carry up to 30 years in prison. A public defender assigned to represent him didn't return AP messages seeking comment. It's unclear why the case took so long to investigate and also when the FBI, which had to pay $138 million to Nassar's victims for botching that investigation, got involved in the case. Among evidence seized by investigators in late May were a cellphone, laptop and a desktop computer along with handwritten notes between Gardner and his former pupils, according to the sealed court documents. They found images of girls, approximately 6 to 14 years in age, who were nude, using the toilet or changing into leotards, those documents show. Those images appear to have come from a hidden camera in a restroom. They also uncovered 50 video files and 400 photos, including some that appeared to be child pornography, according to the FBI affidavit. One video allegedly shows Gardner entering the bathroom and turning off the camera. Investigators also found images of an adult woman secretly filmed entering and exiting a bathtub, and identified her as Gardner's ex-girlfriend. That woman as well as the gym's owner, Candi Workman, told investigators the images appeared to come from Jump'In Gymnastics' facility in Purvis, Mississippi, which has since been closed. SafeSport has long touted that it can deliver sanctions in cases where criminal charges are not pursued as key to its mission. However, Gardner's ability to land a job in health care illustrates the limits of that power: It can ban people from sports but that sanction is not guaranteed to reach the general public. While not commenting about Gardner's case directly, it said in a statement provided to AP that a number of issues factor into why cases can take so long to close, including the 8,000 reports it receives a year with only around 30 full-time investigators. It has revamped some procedures, it said, in an attempt to become more efficient. 'While the Center is able and often does cooperate in law enforcement investigations,' it said, 'law enforcement is not required to share information, updates, or even confirm an investigation is ongoing.' USA Gymnastics President Li Li Leung called the center's task 'really tough, difficult to navigate.' 'I would like to see more consistency with their outcomes and sanctions,' Leung said. 'I would like to see more standardization on things. I would like to see more communication, more transparency from their side.' As the investigation proceeded, Gardner said on his Facebook page he had landed a new job in May 2024 as a surgical technologist at MercyOne West Des Moines Medical Center. It's a role that calls for positioning patients on the operating room table, and assisting with procedures and post-surgery care. Asked about Gardner's employment, hospital spokesman Todd Mizener told the AP: 'The only information I can provide is that he is no longer' at the hospital. Meanwhile, the case lingers, leaving lives in limbo more than three years after the SafeSport Center and police first learned of it. 'SafeSport is now part of a larger problem rather than a solution, if it was ever a solution,' said attorney Silvey. 'The most fundamental professional task such as coordination with local or federal law enforcement gets botched on a daily basis, hundreds of times a year now.'
