Gallagher leaves BC for Hartford

While former Penn assistant John Gallagher is headed north for a new job, it may not be quite as far north as he originally planned.

Though Gallagher resigned from his job at Penn last Wednesday to become an assistant coach at Boston College under former Cornell coach Steve Donahue, Fox Sports writer Jeff Goodman reported yesterday that Gallagher is instead taking the head coaching position at Hartford University.

The Hartford job was recently vacated by Dan Leibovitz, who is expected to join friend Jerome Allen and replace Gallagher as the top assistant at Penn.

In an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian Monday, Gallagher said that he was heading to Boston College as a step toward his goal of becoming a head coach. It appears he didn’t have to wait long to achieve that goal.

Neither Gallagher nor the Hartford Athletics Department could be reached for comment.

Gallagher has strong ties to Hartford, where he was an assistant (under Leibovitz) for the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons. He then spent two years under former Penn coach Glen Miller and, briefly, under Allen before embarking on a journey to Boston College.

Gallagher said on Monday that he had already helped conduct an individual workout at BC and scouted a recruit with Donahue.

However, despite his apparent involvement with the Eagles, Gallagher is reportedly opting to take a head coaching job in the smaller America East Conference over the assistant position in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

With Gallagher going to Hartford, Steve Donahue will now have to find an assistant to replace him at BC. Whether he will try to snatch up another Ivy coach as he did with Gallagher and Columbia’s Joe Jones remains to be seen.

In the meantime, there remain several coaching vacancies within the Ivy League. The reigning conference champion Big Red are still looking to fill the spot left by Donahue’s departure, and last-place Dartmouth is hoping to fill the void left by the resignation of Terry Dunne.

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