Stonehill Athletics Hall of Famer guided men's basketball team from 1960-67
Stonehill Athletics Hall of Fame Bio
EASTON, Mass. (October 12, 2022) – The Stonehill College athletics community is saddened by the passing of former Hall of Fame men's basketball head coach Francis "Fran" O'Brien this week at the age of 90.
O'Brien, whose son Kevin also led the men's basketball team at Stonehill from 2000-03, was inducted to the Stonehill Athletics Hall of Fame in 2001. Fran O'Brien was the fourth head coach in Stonehill men's basketball history, leading the team to 87 wins from 1960-67. Four of his teams posted 14 wins or more in a season, including a then program-best 19 victories during the 1962-63 season. The team finished .500 or better in five of his seven seasons at the helm.
O'Brien also worked as a coach, athletic administrator and educator at nearby Randolph High School, MIT, his alma mater Tufts University and College of the Holy Cross. He recorded 255 wins as head baseball coach at MIT and was awarded the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Ethics in Coaching Award in 2014 and Jack Butterfield Award from the New England Collegiate Baseball Association. MIT dedicated Fran O'Brien Field in 2017 and he has been inducted to Town of Randolph Hall of Fame (1991), Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame (1986) and New England Basketball Hall of Fame, in addition to Stonehill's.
Visiting hours will be held at the Douglass, Edgerley, and Bessom Funeral Home: 25 Sanborn Street (corner of Woburn St.) in Reading, Massachusetts, on Friday, October 14, from 9:30 a.m., to 11:00 a.m., followed by a Mass of Christian Burial in St. Joseph's Church: 173 Albion Street, Wakefield, Massachusetts, at 11:30 a.m.
