Former head coach Leibovitz OK with less lofty title at Penn

Dan Leibovitz has chosen the path less traveled and could not be happier. From the outside, it seems strange that someone would resign a head-coaching position with 4 years left on a contract to take an assistant-coaching position in the Ivy League. Until you listen to Leibovitz, the former Temple assistant, explain why he left Hartford to come back to Penn, his alma mater, to coach under his friend Jerome Allen.

"When I was at Temple, it was never like I've got to become a head coach," Leibovitz said. "I'm not wired that way. I just always want to be with good people in a place that gets it with a chance to win."

Would he have made the move anywhere but Penn?

"For a high, high major," he said. "On this level, categorically no. I walked into the Palestra the other day. I was like a little kid. Nothing beats that for me. Head coach, assistant coach, you're playing your games there, you're practicing there, you're back in the Big 5. I missed the hell out of it. I'm so excited to be back."

And working for Allen, his classmate at Episcopal Academy and Penn.

"The first day that Jerome stood on Episcopal's campus, we played basketball for about 3 hours until the gym was closed," Leibovitz said. "We've been lifelong friends . . .

"At some point, we had talked about opening up a youth center or SAT prep thing for kids. We always knew we were going to do something together later on in life. We just had that kind of relationship. All those years he played in Europe we talked. He's a special guy. We have a really good thing and I am really excited to work for him."

So, it really is quite simple.

"I am so happy," Leibovitz said. "Everybody is like, 'You OK?' I feel like I got a promotion . . . My mother went there. My grandfather went there. His brother went there. It's home for me."

The Penn job opened 10 days ago when John Gallagher left to become one of Steve Donahue's assistants at Boston College. When Leibovitz resigned Tuesday, Hartford turned to Gallagher, who had been one of Leibovitz' assistants before he came to Penn in 2008.

Gallagher, who was introduced yesterday at Hartford, really wanted a chance to see what he could do as a head coach. Leibovitz wanted a chance to coach with his friend at his school. In a college hoops rarity, each man ended up in the chair he most wanted when the music stopped.