Steve Donahue thought he’d never be a head coach again. Then he won Atlantic 10 coach of the year.

Of course Steve Donahue thought he’d never be a college head coach again. How could he have thought otherwise? Who’s racing to hire the 63-year-old fired Penn coach after he went 19-37 in his eighth and ninth seasons leading the Quakers?

It was a realization that didn’t sit comfortably. Coaching basketball is all the Delaware County native has done in his professional life. He had risen in the ranks from Springfield High School to Monsignor Bonner, to his first college job working Herb Magee’s bench at what then was known as Philadelphia Textile, which led to a 10-year run as an assistant on Fran Dunphy’s bench at Penn.

Donahue’s first head coaching job came at Cornell in 2000, and for 24 of the next 25 years — 10 at Cornell, four at Boston College, and, after one year off, a decade at Penn — that’s been the life.

It was a good run, Donahue’s wife, Pamela, told him. Better than most, she said.

“I tried to agree with her,” Donahue said, though he felt and still feels like he has more to give.

A lot has transpired since Donahue confronted career mortality. Billy Lange brought him to St. Joseph’s to be an assistant for the first time since 1999. But then in September, less than two months before the season, Lange abruptly left Hawk Hill for a job with the New York Knicks.

The job was Donahue’s. Right place, right time. A new lease on his coaching life. Then, St. Joe’s started 8-7 overall with an 0-2 record in the Atlantic 10. Its leading scorer at the time, Deuce Jones II, was no longer on the team. It looked like a lost season.

» READ MORE: Acaden Lewis holds the keys to a Villanova run this week, next week, and next season

Tell Donahue then that his Hawks would rattle off 13 wins in 16 games, earn the No. 3 seed in the A-10 tournament and their first double bye since 2018, and he would win the conference’s coach of the year award, and it would be a tale that’s hard to believe.

The Hawks (21-10, 13-5) are there, three wins away from the NCAA Tournament, and while supplanting the A-10’s top teams — St. Louis and Virginia Commonwealth — won’t be easy, it’s at least possible thanks in part to a rejuvenated head coach and a group of players that learned to trust him. St. Joe’s will open A-10 play in Pittsburgh against the Davidson-Loyola Chicago winner at 7:30 p.m. Friday (CNBC).

Trust is an important word to tell the story of the 2025-26 Hawks.

Lenape High School’s Derek Simpson committed to Rutgers out of high school because he trusted Steve Pikiell and his staff. He transferred to St. Joe’s because he trusted Lange and assistant coach Justin Scott. Then Scott left for Oklahoma and Lange for the NBA.

Put yourself in the shoes of Simpson and his teammates. Here’s a guy, Donahue, you barely know, who was just hired to be your assistant coach, who didn’t recruit you, and now you’re supposed to just proceed like everything is normal?

“I needed to find somebody to trust,” Simpson said. “It took us a little time.”

Donahue was well-aware that it would. “It’s way harder for them to trust me,” he said. “They were recruited by someone else, they were very successful the last two years, and here comes someone else.” He had to change his nomenclature, he said, and had to be sensitive about making drastic transformations.

It was a process, said Simpson, a first-team all-conference selection. Donahue started to build his team’s trust little by little. There was some yelling, but also some teaching. Donahue sends individual clips from practice with thoughts and coaching points.

“He was able to put everything together slowly, step by step,” Simpson said. “We weren’t trying to go 1 to 10, we were going 1 to 2, 2 to 3.”

That’s a mentality Donahue drilled in their heads. He calls it going from “A to B.”

“I think in the beginning, we tried to do things that worked for Billy and not worked for him,” Simpson said. “We needed a little bit more discipline. We needed a little bit more of corrective criticism.

“We had a group of guys that were looking for an answer. And in the beginning, I think he was a little too soft on us. … We felt like just because Coach Lange left that everybody had to go soft on us, but that’s not the way the world works.”

» READ MORE: Point guard Derek Simpson is assisting in St. Joseph’s turnaround: ‘We can be unstoppable’

Donahue didn’t disagree with Simpson’s assessment.

He felt more comfortable stepping into the head coaching job, even though being an assistant allowed him to let his hair down and connect with players in a way that they sometimes don’t get with a head coach. But he was intentionally soft.

“I think that’s probably right,” Donahue said. “I probably was very conscious of trying to be liked and trying to fit in. There was a point where I said, ‘I’m going to do this my way, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.’

“I probably wasn’t myself. If this wasn’t going to work, I didn’t want to look back and regret that I didn’t do it honestly how I felt it should be done.”

A lot of the Hawks’ run of 13 wins in 16 games can be attributed to a meeting in early January when Simpson and a group of teammates walked into Donahue’s office and everyone got their feelings out and set themselves straight. But all of this, too, is just the gradual process of figuring each other out. Lange assembled a talented roster. Donahue had to learn the people, the players, and how to make it go.

“He always would tell us in the beginning, this is the most talented team he’s ever had, athletic-wise, and also athletic mixed with a little IQ in there,” Simpson said. “I think we helped him out in a way to show him that even though we’re really athletic and we’re really quick to the ball, we have some type of IQ. We can listen to you and understand you. I really think we’ve helped him change his perspective on a basketball school because he’s been at these smarty-farty schools, and he comes here and he’s probably expecting a little different.”

Donahue did spend 19 seasons in the Ivy League, and another four at Boston College. He laughed at Simpson’s phrasing.

“I think these guys have the opinion that the Ivy League players are these smart, brilliant guys,” Donahue said. “It’s all basketball, and in some ways their IQ about basketball is even better than some of the kids I coached in the Ivy League. That being said, you have to learn all your players and how they process things and how they learn.”

There was some “wonkiness” to all of that early on, Donahue said, but it got better with age.

» READ MORE: Villanova’s teams are going to the NCAA Tournament. Will they have any company from the Big 5?

Maybe he has, too? He never stopped loving basketball, and 10 months on Hawk Hill have more than provided a reminder that he’s still doing what he’s supposed to do.

“It’s overblown that people aren’t happy coaching in this day and age of NIL and transfer portal,” Donahue said. “I think the challenges are the same on the floor. Everything off the floor has changed, but that’s always been a challenge. There was recruiting, budgeting, facilities.

“I feel rejuvenated in the sense that I’m grateful that I got this opportunity, and I’m going to try to take full advantage of it.”