alemany hires wooley

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SoCalHoops Recruiting News

Alemany Hires New Boys'
Basketball Coach--(Oct. 3, 1999)

Both the Daily News and the LA Times reported on Saturday that Alemany High School has hired David Wooley, a former Kennedy High basketball player who most recently was an assistant boys' coach at Burbank High School under Ron Quarterman, who was also a finalist for the job, but turned it down to stay at Burbank. "God, am I excited," Wooley told Eric Sondheimer of the LA Times. Wooley, 34, takes over the program from Darryl McDonald, who was fired this summer after it was discovered that he was a registered sex offender and had not only failed to disclose his status as a convicted felon, but had also eluded detection by submitting a false set of fingerprints when he was initially hired to coach at the San Fernando YMCA where he coached in the CAVS program. When Alemany hired McDonald last year, Alemany apparently didn't conduct their own security clearance check, which would have required that another set of fingerprints be submitted to the California Justice Department. Instead Alemany allegedly relied on the check done by the YMCA several years earlier. While the Archdiocese has not formally stated it's reasons, it is believed that the failure to conduct the security clearance check was what led to the firing of Dudley Rooney, a longtime teacher at Alemany, who was also the former Athletic Director and girls' softball coach at Alemany.

"I'm looking to bring closure to what's happened," Wooley said. "I understand what [the players] are feeling. I went through four coaches in three years of high school," Wooley told Sondheimer. While it's understandable that Wooley wants to bring closure and let the basketball team get on with it's season and life, in our view, until the Archdiocese remedies the Rooney situation, there will not be closure for anyone involved.

As for Ron Quarterman, one of the other finalists for the job, he told Sondheimer that it did not bother him to be "second choice." Wooley, according to the articles published Saturday, has lived in the Valley all his life. He played for the East Valley Trojans as a child, and played guard on LA Kennedy High's basketball teams, graduating in 1983. Wooley will be a walk-on coach and will not teach at the Mission Hills school.