PHILADELPHIA — Fran Dunphy '69, the Head Coach of La Salle men's basketball, has been named one of four recipients of the Joe Lapchick Character Award, the Joe Lapchick Character Award Foundation announced. Special Assistant to the Head Coach Joe Mihalich '78 earned the award last season.
 
Dunphy joins Jim Larranaga, Lon Kruger, and Dianna Nolan as those who earned the award. This is the 16th year the award presented to those who have shown the character traits of Lapchick, who coached at St. John's and with the New York Knicks. The foursome will be honored at a luncheon on Sept. 20 in New York.
 
Dunphy is coming off the third season of his third stint coaching the Explorers, his first stint as head coach. Dunphy and his staff are coming off a strong season in which the team earned 16 wins, its most since 2014-15. The Explorers took third place in the first-ever Big 5 Classic and won its final four games at Tom Gola Arena.
 
Dunphy, a member of the Philadelphia Big 5, La Salle Athletics, Penn Athletics, and Philadelphia Sports Writers Halls of Fame, has amassed nearly 600 victories over his 30 years as head coach at Penn (1989-06) and Temple (2006-19). He is the only coach to oversee multiple Big 5 men's programs, and his teams have competed in 17 NCAA Tournaments.

In his first season as head coach for La Salle, Dunphy guided the Explorers to the Atlantic 10 Championship Tournament quarterfinals for the first time since 2015 and helped them win two games in the tournament for the first time since 2002. He also oversaw an Explorer squad that won 15 games for the second time in four seasons and go on a five-game winning streak from Feb. 1-15.

As a dual-sport student-athlete at La Salle from 1967-70, Dunphy played both baseball and basketball for the Explorers, and was a member of the 1968-69 team that was coached by all-time La Salle great Tom Gola. The team finished that season 23-1 and ranked second in the final Associated Press Top 25 Poll. As a senior, Dunphy averaged 18.6 points per game and also led La Salle in assists. 
 
Following his playing days, Dunphy jumped right into coaching and was an assistant on La Salle's 1979-80 squad that earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament. Individually, Michael Brooks earned National Player of the Year honors and would go on to be drafted 9th overall in the NBA Draft by the Clippers. 
 
Dunphy then spent five seasons as an assistant at American University before returning home to join La Salle's staff from 1985-88. During that time, the Explorers successfully recruited eventual National Player of the Year Lionel Simmons from South Philadelphia High School, advanced to the finals of the National Invitation Tournament in 1987, and won a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship in 1988.  
In 1989, Dunphy was named head coach at the University of Pennsylvania. Over the next 17 seasons, he would win 10 Ivy League titles, post nine 20-win seasons, and amass a total of 310 victories – the most by any coach in Penn history. The Quakers won 48 straight Ivy League games from 1992-96, and his '93-94 team went 25-3, was ranked as high as No. 24 nationally, and defeated Nebraska in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. 
 
Dunphy's career continued at Temple, when he took over for Naismith Hall of Famer John Chaney in 2006. The Owls advanced to the NCAA Tournament eight times in his 13 years, including a run of seven consecutive seasons from 2007-13. During his 13 seasons at Temple, Dunphy's teams defeated nationally ranked teams a total of 18 times, including victories over Duke, Kansas, Villanova, Syracuse, Connecticut, Florida State, West Virginia, Tennessee, Xavier, and Georgetown.  
 
In 2020, Dunphy transitioned into an interim athletic director position at Temple. Over the past two years, the Drexel Hill, Pa. native has been active with his alma mater. He was the recipient of an honorary degree at La Salle University's 2020 Commencement ceremony at Lincoln Financial Field and has broadcast numerous men's basketball games on ESPN+.