Boys Basketball: Doyles, McCormicks enjoying special bond on court

It was the summer of 2004 when Mike Doyle got the kind of offer many coaches dream of. Fresh off an unbeaten regular season and a run to the Elite Eight, Saint Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli offered Doyle, wrapping up his first season at the helm of Penncrest, a job on his staff. The position represented a chance for Doyle to return to Hawk Hill, the basketball family he’d married into, where he’d spent nine seasons on three coaches’ staffs. For most coaches, it would’ve been an easy decision, to work again for the reigning Associated Press national Coach of the Year. After careful deliberation of the benefits and drawbacks, though, one item in particular led him to decline.

“I made a positive and negative list,’ Doyle said this week after a Penncrest practice, “and I think one of the big things on that positive list was the ability to coach my son.’

The McCormicks are meticulous about forging a line between court and home, dictating when interactions are between father and son or coach and player. For the Doyles, the line faded long ago.

“It’s our life,’ Doyle Sr. said. “We talk about basketball. We go home, we watch basketball. Those boundaries, it’s like people say, ‘ oh you don’t discuss it on the car ride home.’ The whole car ride home, we’re talking about the game.’

One of the biggest apprehensions Doyle Sr. harbored in piloting his son’s high school career was the immense responsibility he felt not to squander the innumerable hours Mike Jr. had put in to reach this level. Their relationship was occasionally contentious in Mike’s freshman and sophomore seasons, but the son’s increasing maturity and ability to see his father’s viewpoints have lessened the squabbles.

“He’s a yeller as a coach, and that’s just the kind of person he is,’ Doyle Jr. said. “And I would always yell back at him. Even if he was right and I was right, I would always yell back. Now I kind of let him coach me, and I’m like, ‘ OK, why don’t we try this.’ I won’t yell back. I’ll kind of let him coach me.’

Despite the challenges, each player appreciates the rarity of his on-court relationship with his dad and believe it’s brought them closer. Even with the adversity along the way, the fathers agree.

“It’s also something I wouldn’t give back,’ McCormick Sr. said. “… I would never trade it, these three years. I certainly wish we had more victories, but that’s not the be all and end all. It’s the experiences, with Kevin and his friends.’

Doyle illustrates what he calls the “most rewarding thing that I’ve ever done in my basketball career’ with an anecdote, from last year’s win over defending state champion Lower Merion, one of the best wins in the program’s recent history.

“(Mike) hit a big 3 that on film, we’re up with two with 40 seconds to go, and I’m like, ‘ what’s he doing?,” Doyle said. “And it goes in, game over, the crowd storms the court. And he came up to me and the first thing he did was he hugged me and said, ‘ we did it dad. We did it.’

“You just don’t get those moments, and I wouldn’t trade it for all the games at St. Joe’s.’

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