Jim McGeough’s coaching career began at Providence College.  While still a senior at P.C., he was named the Friars’ men’s track coach.

Following graduation, he came to Warren High School, where between 1931 and the spring of 1936, he served as the school’s Athletic Director and coach of football, basketball, and baseball.

His football teams captured the 1933 Class B Championship and the 1935 Class C Championship.  In the last nine games his teams played either Barrington or Colt Memorial, the Red Raiders recorded six wins and three ties.

Due to lack of funds (this was during the middle of the Depression), Warren High did not have a baseball team from 1932 to 1934; when they returned to competition, they did so with a vengeance, finishing second in the Class B playoffs in 1935 and winning the 1936 Class C Championship before losing to Cranston in the state finals. 

The best that his basketball fives could do was three runner-up finishes in either Class B or C.  But perhaps the best coaching moment in the tenure of this fiery and argumentative Irishman came in that sport in 1936.  Arch-rival Colt Memorial lost a number of players due to fouls and had to play the last minute of a game with only four players; to ensure that Warren wouldn’t have an unfair advantage, Jim took one of his players off the floor – and ended up losing the game, 22-24.

In 1931 he coached the Warren Wanderers semi-pro football team, whose win at the Providence Cycledrome cemented their ranking as one of the top two teams in Rhode Island.

In the fall of 1936 Jim moved to St. Raphael Academy, where he taught English and Latin and coached baseball, basketball, football, and swimming.  In the 1940s he did the same at Pawtucket West High School, where he eventually became the dean.  For the last 20 years of his academic career, he was the principal of Tolman High School.  In his spare time, Jim was one of the state’s leading football officials.

Picture from Hall of Fame Archives