Ed Donohue, the father of Lourdes sports, remembered for his charisma and creativity

Ed Donohue once was asked by a reporter what his greatest accomplishment was. There would have been plenty to choose from the list of basketball triumphs, including leading a small college nestled in the sticks to an NCAA tournament or recruiting a future NBA great to another small school upstate.

The Poughkeepsie native paused for a second in thoughtful reflection.

The response, his son recalled, was a proud boast of how he once drank three six-packs in short time.

For as seriously as the longtime coach and athletic administrator took competition, he never took himself that seriously. He could find humor in almost anything.

“He was a classic,” former Our Lady of Lourdes High School football coach Brian Tervenski said. “He carried himself in a dignified way, but he was affable and could tell some great stories.”

Some great stories have been told about him, like his establishment of the athletic department at Lourdes, and his service in the Air Force, and how he coached basketball Hall of Famer Calvin Murphy, and how he retired with a winning record against Mike Krzyzewski, and how he elevated the men’s basketball team at Kings College, and how NFL legend Jim Brown ended up babysitting for him.

And, of course, how he downed those beers.

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“He was clever, and he was fun to be around,” Ed Donohue III said of his father. “More than the accomplishments, he cherished the fact that he touched a lot of people and made a lot of friends.”

Edward Donohue Jr. died peacefully at his home in Florida on Jan. 8, in the company of relatives. He was 93. Donohue was predeceased by his wife, Ruth, and is survived by his children Edward, Karin and Robynn, along with seven grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.

Donahue Jr. suffered from a heart ailment in his later years and, his son said, “he just ran out of gas.”

“We’re sad about losing him,” Donohue III said, “but he lived a long time and had a great life. It won’t be hard to celebrate his life.”

Celebrations of his career included his induction into the Dutchess County and Our Lady of Lourdes athletic halls of fame.

“I never worked with him, but I knew of him and how respected he was,” said Tervenski, who in 1967 took over the football program at Lourdes that Donohue had started a few years earlier. “I met him at a Hall of Fame dinner, and he made a lasting impression.”

Donohue was a four-sport standout at Poughkeepsie High School, and he went on to play football at Niagara University before joining the Air Force and fighting in the Korean War.

After an honorable discharge from the military, he earned a masters degree from Syracuse University and got into coaching high school sports upstate. He soon returned to his hometown, hired in 1959 by a Catholic school that recently had opened in Poughkeepsie. He established the football, basketball and baseball programs at Lourdes, coaching each of them and overcoming challenges that included the school at first not having athletic facilities.

The baseball team practiced on a field near what was Hudson River State Hospital, Donohue III said. His dad also was friends with Arlington athletic director Fritz Jordan, who allowed his football team use of the practice field at that school. The teams competed at the junior varsity level and played their inaugural seasons entirely on the road.

“When I graduated from grade school in 1958, I begged my parents not to send me to Lourdes because they didn’t have sports,” said Tervenski, who grew up in Poughkeepsie. “Ed came in and inherited that. They also had a limited budget. But he got creative, used his connections, and did the hard work to get the programs off the ground.”

Lourdes now boasts one of the most prominent athletic departments in the area. Five of its teams reached at least their respective section finals last fall.

“He was very proud of what he helped build at Lourdes,” his 69-year-old son said. “He cared a lot about those athletes, too. I met a lot of them at his Hall of Fame ceremony, and all their names were familiar because dad used to talk about them at home so often.”

Donohue left Lourdes in 1963, taking a job as an assistant basketball coach at Niagara. It was there he played a significant role in recruiting Calvin Murphy and Manny Leaks, both of whom went on excel in the NBA. That was a springboard to a head coaching gig and the athletic director position at Division II Kings College in 1968.

The family moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and he led the men’s basketball team to 201 wins in 15 years, including its first 20-win season and NCAA tournament berth in 1974. His tenure there resulted in his induction into the Northeastern Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.

Among the highlights was a 1976 win over Army, coached then by Krzyzewski, before his legendary career at Duke. That 73-63 victory added Donohue to a short list of coaches with a winning record against “Coach K,” which Donohue often joked about.

Another highlight was coaching his son there. Donohue III, a 6-foot-4 guard, passed up other offers to play for the team he’d followed closely during high school.

“Dad said the first two years were difficult with me, but he loved the last two,” Donohue III said of the parent-coach dynamic. “He was a great father and an excellent coach.”

After full retirement in 1993, Donahue traveled often with his wife and the couple eventually settled in New Port Richey, a coastal city in Florida. Several of his former players kept in touch, including Murphy, whom Donohue spoke to months before passing.

“He’ll definitely be missed by a lot of people,” said Donohue III, whose four kids got to know their grandpa well. “But when you can look back and say someone lived long, accomplished a lot and enjoyed the ride, you have to appreciate that.”

Stephen Haynes: shaynes@poughkeepsiejournal.com; 845-437-4826; Twitter: @StephenHaynes4

This article originally appeared on Poughkeepsie Journal: Poughkeepsie's Ed Donohue remembered fondly, pioneered Lourdes sports