Following-up on a rumor that HoopDirt.com posted back on 10/24. It’s now been made official – Frank McQuail has been named as the interim head coach at SUNY Maritime. He replaces Jake Scott who became the head coach at SUNY Cobleskill late last month.
McQuail has been on the SUNY Maritime staff as an assistant for the past two seasons. In year two with the program, McQuail helped lead the team to eight victories on the year with all eight coming in league games. As a squad the team set program records for both assists in a season as well as blocks in a year while Patrick MacDonald ’18 set the single-season mark for rebounds during the year. Following the season, MacDonald was a Skyline All-Conference First Team selection, Maritime’s first since the 2011-12 campaign.
During his first season on the Maritime staff, he helped the team double its win total from the previous season, including four wins in Skyline Conference play. In his first year, McQuail oversaw senior Sean Corley lead the Skyline in both assists and steals, while sophomore Isaiah Hayes was tops in the Skyline in blocked shots, with rookie Patrick MacDonald leading the league in field goal percentage in 2015.
McQuail brings a highly decorated pedigree of coaching basketball in the tri-state area as he recently serves as the varsity basketball coach of Cathedral Preparatory High School in Elmhurst, New York, a position he began in 2002. While overseeing the Crusader basketball program, he mentored the team to the 2003 CHSAA Class B Championship, en route to being named to the CHSAA Coach of the Year. He later won the award again following the 2008 season.
In addition to his time at Cathedral Prep, McQuail spent the 2012-13 year with one of the most successful AAU programs in the region as a coach with the Long Island Lightning, based out of the historic Island Garden in West Hempstead in Nassau County.
Before his lengthy stint with the Crusaders at Cathedral Prep, McQuail spent four seasons at Bergtraum High School in Manhattan from 1997 through 2001. He helped lead the team there to the 1999 New York City PSAL Division B finals. He spent the previous five seasons at Thomas Edison High School in Jamaica, New York as the head coach of the junior varsity program and assistant coach with the varsity team.
McQuail has a been involved in academic administration since 1999 with principal positions at several high schools, including his current position as assistant principal and athletic director at Robert F. Kennedy High School in Flushing, New York. This followed an 11-year stint as a social studies teacher, also in Queens.
