1--The Beginning

Harry DeFrank knew enough not to linger. You don’t spend almost 50 years of your adult life coaching youth and high school sports and not learn to do some things—like when to stay and when to go--if not by style, then just by instinct. This was one of those times for both.

Somber…that’s the only way to describe the mood in the Trinity Lady Shamrock locker room in the aging Hershey Park Arena that March night in 2003.

DeFrank’s basketball team…year in and year out, one of the most successful girls’ programs in the state…had just suffered a disappointing loss in that year’s state tournament. It was, perhaps, the most disappointing loss in the school’s storied girls basketball history--a first-round elimination, 54-46, to Villa Maria Academy of southeastern Pennsylvania.

For this Trinity team, a team just two years removed from a state championship and just one year removed from a repeat appearance in the state championship final…a team with four core seniors back for a third consecutive run at a state title, this loss was more than disappointing for the players. It was devastating.

Coach DeFrank remembered it that way…

“When you win a state championship, (and his Lady Shamrocks had won two in his reign) you go into (the locker room), clap hands and say, ‘Great job!’…Then, you get out of there and let the players enjoy it.”

And in defeat like this one? “The longer you stand there, the worse it gets. It’s a time for them to be alone!” DeFrank knew time would heal the fresh wound of the moment. It usually does.



This story…a story of a coach, a high school and the good influence both could have on the lives of the young people in their charge…really starts on a mild June morning…June 25, 1984, to be exact.

Father Michael McFadden, the Trinity principal, announces the appointment of Harry DeFrank to be the new head coach of the Lady Shamrock basketball team

DeFrank was named to succeed Jeff Thompson, for whom he had been a principal assistant the previous two seasons.

DeFrank was, without question, the logical successor to Thompson. Not only had he been a Thompson assistant the two previous years; but he also had to his background 20 very successful seasons of coaching Catholic Youth Organization football and boys and girls basketball at the elementary school level. His Good Shepherd Elementary School girls team won the CYO state championship the year before he joined Thompson at Trinity.


Succeeding Thompson would be a challenge for any new coach. The Lady Shamrocks had posted a 66-19 record during his three-year stint at the school. They were 51-10 in his final two years and played in the 1983 AA State championship game.

DeFrank, however, clearly was not intimidated by the task before him. “I’m not putting any pressure on myself or the girls,” he said, “but I think we’ll continue to be a good team.”

…His assessment of the potential of the team he was inheriting was right on the mark. The Lady Shamrocks ran off a 23-3 record in his inaugural season. They won both the Mid-Penn Division II and Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) District 3 AA titles before running afoul of Marion Catholic in the first round of the PIAA state play-offs. Catholic, the defending State Class A champions, eliminated Trinity, 56-53. The next year the Lady Shamrocks would win Trinity’s first state basketball championship.



The record book tells you all you need to know about the bottom line of Harry DeFrank’s tenure as the Lady Shamrock’s head basketball coach at Trinity High School.

--585 wins and only 127 losses over a 23-year span through the 2006-07 season.

--Seven state championship appearances over that same period (two state championships won);

--Three Eastern PIAA state final appearances;

--Four 30-win seasons and sixteen 20-win seasons, ranging from a best of 32-2 (the state championship season of 1986) to a worst of 18-12 (2000) and 18-11 (2004);

--Only three of 23 seasons with fewer than 20 wins;

--Nine District 3 AA titles and 13 Mid-Penn Conference championships (11 at the AAAA level);

--100 wins in four years; 200 wins in eight years; 300 wins in 12 years; 400 wins in 16 years; and 500 wins in 20 years (symmetrical success, to say the least).

Most important, perhaps, for his young players looking to move on with their lives,

--22 players through the 2006-07 season who earned basketball grants to Division I colleges;

--And 13 who continued their playing careers at Division II or Division III colleges.

For Trinity the school, for the Lady Shamrock players and for Harry DeFrank the coach, it was quite an amazing run over almost a quarter-century span.


But the Harry DeFrank story is more than a story about mere wins and losses, titles won and scholarships awarded. It’s also a story about character development. Good coaches…the really good coaches at high schools across the country…whether they realize it or not, are hired as much to build the character of the young people under their influence as they are to win championships.

The loss that March night in 2003 to Villa Maria Academy was as much a character builder for these young ladies as they would confront so early in their still-to-be determined career paths.

DeFrank, for one, was confident they were more than equal to the challenge. “That’s the way life is,” he said. “You can have the better team, but you don’t always win. It’s not always that easy. You go after something and can’t get it. That’s what you get out of sport. It’s a phase in growing up.”

A cliché? Perhaps. But some cliches were true to life. This was one of them. And Harry DeFrank knew it.






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