maly, too: Todd Townsend Hired for Drake Basketball Coaching Staff

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Todd Townsend Hired for Drake Basketball Coaching Staff

Drake basketball coach Ray Giacoletti has announced the final member of his coaching staff with the hiring of Todd Townsend.

“Todd brings the last piece of the puzzle in to our coaching staff with great recruiting ties in Chicago and Milwaukee,” Giacoletti said. “He has a great background having played at Marquette under Tom Crean and he gives our program a staff that is capable of scouring the Midwest to attract the best student-athletes to Drake.”

Townsend, a former captain and member of a Final Four team at Marquette, comes to Drake after spending the last four seasons in a similar role at Northern Illinois. While at NIU, his recruiting efforts helped attract some of the top talent in Illinois to campus.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to join coach Giacoletti’s staff and the Drake men’s basketball program,” Townsend said. “Drake’s mix of strong academics and a commitment to creating a first-class student-athlete experience – coupled with coach Giacoletti’s vision for the program – makes this a very attractive program to be a part of.”

On the court, Townsend helped mentor Xavier Silas, the leading scorer in the Mid-American Conference and seventh-leading scorer in the nation during the 2010-11 season. During Townsend's first season on staff, Silas became the first NIU player to earn All-District honors in more than a decade. Silas went on to become the first Huskie to play in the NBA since 1997, spending the 2011-12 season as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers organization.

As a recruiter, Townsend helped NIU sign a number of high-profile in-state recruits, including Abdel Nader, a top-10 recruit in Illinois and Dre Henley, a top-25 recruit in Illinois. Tim Toler, a first team junior college All-American, and highly-recruited twins Keith and Kevin Gray were also actively recruited by Townsend and helped the Huskies start to rebuild the program with a young foundation.

As a member of NIU head Mark Montgomery's first staff in 2011-12, Townsend helped coached one of the youngest teams in the nation. NIU saw 55.9 percent of its minutes played by freshmen, the sixth-highest percentage in the country, and the Huskies lead the MAC in offensive rebounds while ranking second in rebounding defense and third in rebounding margin. Abdel Nader became the first NIU player since 2009 to be named to the MAC All-Freshman team.

Prior to coming to NIU, Townsend spent the 2008-09 season in Europe, playing and coaching professionally. Townsend started the season in Germany playing for the Dusseldorf Giants before finishing the season in Sweden as a player/coach with the Norrkoping Dolphins.

A native of Chicago, Townsend worked as an assistant coach at Northeastern University during the 2007-08 season under head coach Bill Coen. Townsend helped Northeastern's Matt Janning earn second team All-Colonial Athletic Association honors and Chaisson Allen receive CAA All-Rookie team recognition.

Before beginning his coaching career at Northeastern, Townsend served two years as the director of basketball operations at his alma mater, Marquette. Working under then-head coach Tom Crean, Townsend was part of a staff that guided the Golden Eagles to two-consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, a 20-12 BIG EAST Conference record, and a combined record of 44-21 in back-to-back 20-win campaigns.

In four seasons as a player at Marquette (2001-05), Townsend helped the Golden Eagles win 91 games, advancing to postseason play in all four seasons. Marquette made two trips to the NCAA Tournament during Townsend's playing career, including a trip to the NCAA Final Four in 2003. Townsend started all 33 games on the team that reached Marquette's first Final Four since 1977. He captained Marquette during his senior season and was a two-time recipient of the Bart Miller Standard of Excellence Award during his playing career with the Golden Eagles.

“I think his playing experience is huge, having played alongside Dwyane Wade and been to a Final Four,” Giacoletti said. “That builds instant credibility for our players. I’m excited to have him. He’s a hard-working, organized and well-respected young coach.”

Townsend earned his bachelor's degree in communication studies from Marquette in May of 2005. He has a son, Tyson, born in December of 2009, and a daughter, Leila, born in June of 2011.

[This story was written for Ron Maly by Ty Patton, Drake's assistant athletic director for communications].

Todd Townsend. Photo courtesy of GoDrakeBulldogs.com

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.