GILROY—You can’t pull Daniel Mooney away from basketball for even a second.
The new coach of the Christopher boys basketball program kept a vigilant eye on his team while talking about his new role, peppering in compliments to his players as they ran drills.
Mooney has an impressive basketball background, having played professionally for 18 years with stints in the NBA, CBA and overseas in Europe. He earned All-American honors while playing for State University of New York at La Paltz and is an NCAA Hall of Famer. He began his coaching career at the now-closed Bethany University and was there for five years. During his time at Bethany, he coached not only the men and women’s teams, but also four of his own kids in the process. Most recently, Mooney was the head coach of the boys team at Monte Vista Christian and helped it to a Monterey Bay League-Pacific Division title in 2012. His Mustangs were 7-1 against Christopher under his leadership and now he’s looking to have the same success with the Cougars.
“Everybody knows who I am, but it’s not about me,” Mooney said. “My goal was to come here and develop a program. You always want to leave a program—when you’re ready to leave—you leave a program better than when you received it.”
Mooney joined the Cougars the day before the Central Coast Section’s mandatory dead period in August, leaving him less time than he would have liked to work with the team over the summer, but it’s been smooth sailing ever since. He has seen a large turnout so far and only expects numbers to grow when football season wraps up and athletes transition to basketball.
While the Cougars lost key players such as Evan Shapiro and Shane Shuttles to graduation, they will get back both Dillon Day and Chad Hartman. The seniors add size—both are over six-foot tall—and much needed veteran leadership to a program in transition.
“We have high expectations,” Day said. “Definitely one of our goals is to win league and go far in CCS because it’s the last year for us seniors. We got a new coach that looks like he’s got it all put together.”
Senior guard TJ Cox and junior Thomas Ellis—a transfer student from Bellarmine College Prep—will join them. Mooney said the sophomore class also shows a great deal of potential and that has him pumped for the future.
“How can you not be excited about a program that’s only five years old?” he said. “I can’t say enough about the admin part of things. They’ve been really, really, really supportive.”
All levels—freshmen through varsity—practice together, helping to create positive team chemistry across the board.
“I think one of our strengths is that we all get along,” Hartman said. “That’s really big and helps that team chemistry. That can be the difference between winning and losing games.”
While the lack of playing time over the spring and summer may hurt them, Ellis said the team’s versatility should help combat that.
“I think we have a lot of different characters, a lot of different personalities coming onto the team,” Ellis said. “We have a lot of different ways we can play this game and I think that will be a strength of ours. Not every team can shoot the ball like we can or penetrate to the rim like we can, so I think the versatility that we bring is a big strength.”
Christopher kicks off its season at 4 p.m. Dec. 4 at the Aptos Tournament. It will have its first home game against Gunderson at 7 p.m. Dec. 10 and kicks off league play at Mooney’s old stomping grounds—Monte Vista Christian—at 7 p.m. Jan. 7.
Hartman, Ellis and Day all said their new coach’s dedication to them is apparent. Mooney drives an hour from Scotts Valley to coach the Cougars each day and they want to show their appreciation with ‘W’s on the court this season.
But for Mooney, the season record is the least of his concerns.
“All I want to do is compete, play hard every night, let the fans come out and see these boys develop and whatever happens, happens,” he said. “I never went into it with a win or loss type of thing—I never have. I’m a man of faith, so I just want to work hard and see what happens.”
