Edward “Nap” Doherty, the men’s head basketball coach at Loyola University Maryland who later led Johns Hopkins University’s team, died of cancer June 28 at his West Towson home. He was 93.
As a Loyola student, he became the school’s third all-time leading scorer with 1,109 points. He was a two-time All-Mason-Dixon Conference honoree in 1952 and 1953. Sports writers in the 1950s referred to him as “Nap,” a name he picked up as a young basketball player on the outdoor courts of Brooklyn. He would often curl up and take a nap on the sidelines, and the name never went away.
Born in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant, New York, he was the son of Edward “Ned” Doherty, who worked in heavy construction as a sandhog building the tunnels, and his wife, Rose Boyle. Both were Irish immigrants from County Donegal.
He attended grade school at St. Teresa of Avila School. In high school, the order of Xaverian Brothers awarded him a scholarship to St. Joseph’s Preparatory School in Bardstown, Kentucky and he went on to Loyola University Maryland.
“He loved Kentucky, Bardstown and its people; he maintained friendships there until his last days,” said his son, Joseph Doherty.
He served in the Army at Fort Dix, New Jersey and worked briefly in banking in Brooklyn. In 1957, he was tapped by Emil “Lefty” Reitz to be his assistant coach and run Loyola’s intramural programs. He succeeded Reitz as head coach in 1961.
While a Loyola student, he played in a highly-publicized game in February 1952 when Loyola competed against Morgan State University. The contest was unusual in Baltimore in the era of segregation. The game was played on the Morgan campus.
“The exits were clogged with standees and every one of the 2,200 seats was filled for the contest,” The Baltimore Sun’s account said, adding that Mr. Doherty was one of the team’s high scorers.
Mr. Doherty coached 13 seasons, heading the men’s basketball program at the Loyola Evergreen campus from 1961 to 1974. He finished with a 165-153 (.519) record over his 12 seasons.
“As a player, Doherty might best be described as feisty, and as a coach, his teams displayed that same trademark. They were aggressive but disciplined, a direct reflection of their coach,” said sports writer Jim Henneman in a 2014 Pressbox story.
Mike Krawczyk, who played with Loyola from 1968 to 1972, said, “He taught players a sense of responsibility, to do the right thing. He was a caring and wholesome person. Nap had things in perspective. He told me that academics would be first.”
In 1974, former Evening Sun sports editor Bill Tanton wrote about Mr. Doherty, his team, and its then-small basketball court: “Loyola could play the Boston Celtics in that bandbox and probably give them a pretty good game.”
He led the Loyola Greyhounds to the 1971 Mason-Dixon Conference Championship, the school’s first since the Greyhounds won the title in 1953. He also led his team to the 1973 Mason-Dixon crown and its first-ever bid to the NCAA tournament. His Greyhounds went on to win their first-round game in the NCAA Division II Championships that year, beating Biscayne College.
After leaving Loyola, he coached briefly for the Broadcasting Institute of Maryland and the semi-pro Baltimore Metros. In 1981, he joined Johns Hopkins University as men’s basketball coach, where he served until 1986.
In retirement, he served as a volunteer coach for many years at Villa Julie College and Stevenson University.
He met his future wife, Carol Radwitch, through an introduction by friends. They married on August 27, 1966, at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.
A funeral Mass will be held July 14 at the Church of the Nativity in Timonium.
Survivors include his wife, Carol Radwitch Doherty; three daughters, Mary Chozick, of Sparta, New Jersey, Ann Ware, of West Towson, and Kathleen Doherty, of Charleston, South Carolina; a son, Joseph Doherty, of Riderwood; two sisters, Anne Doherty, of Brooklyn, New York, and Rosemary Murphy, of Philadelphia; and nine grandchildren.
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