One day after legendary coach Jim Yerkovich officially announced his retirement, the Judge Memorial High School administration has named Dan Del Porto as his successor, Athletics Director Dan Quinn told The Tribune on Wednesday .
Del Porto has been Yerkovich's top assistant coach for 24 years. He's been an athletics director at the school for 11 years and he's run the Judge summer basketball camp for a number of years.
"We're very excited to have Dan be Jim's replacement," Quinn said. "One of the big things that people don't know is how committed Dan has been to Judge. For the last 13 years, Jim has said that whenever he retires he wants coach Del Porto to replace him."
In that sense, said Quinn, Del Porto was an un-official coach in waiting. The conversation, Quinn said, started before the beginning of the season when it became clear that retirement may be an option for Yerkovich. Del Porto, knowing that this may be a possibility, had stepped down from his job as the AD and had taken a position as a school counselor.
That cleared the way for the school to move quickly once Yerkovich, who in 44 years as the head coach leaves the bench with 634 wins, decided to officially step down.
"It was very important for us to have a plan in place when Jim retired," Quinn said. "Anytime you have a coaching change, the program is affected. But the program has been established and is in place. We just needed a new leader."
Quinn says that he believes Del Porto will continue many of the traditions put in place by Yerkovich. He believes that the program, on the court, will continue to stress defense and rebounding first.
