When the legendary baseball and basketball coach Jack Curran passed away in mid-March, two men tried diligently to replace the long-tenured coach and his 2,680 career wins.

But these two would agree that there is no replacing Jack Curran. Instead, they continue the traditions he started at Archbishop Molloy H.S., Briarwood, and instilled in his student athletes for the past 55 years.

Those two men, interim baseball coach Brad Lyons and interim basketball coach Mike McCleary, have officially been named the head coaches for their respective sports.

Each took over this season following the passing of Curran. Curran coached for much of the basketball season, but McCleary, Curran’s assistant coach for the past 15 years and also the school’s athletic director, led the team late in the season and in the playoffs. Even with his new responsibility, McCleary will remain as the school’s athletic director.

“We’ve never not had him (Curran) here, so for him not to be here, we don’t know what it’s like,” McCleary said in an interview with NET-TV’s Currents at Coach Curran’s Player’s Day held in late April. “So there are less kids coming around the office to see him and a little lonelier in there in the afternoons. But hopefully his words have rung through us enough times that we’re going to remember and relive them again.”

As for Lyons, he had been an assistant baseball coach under Curran for the previous two seasons.

“He’s (Curran) irreplaceable for what he did for this school and for what he’s done for the community,” Lyons said. “You don’t replace someone like that. You don’t try to fill his shoes.”

Both interim coaches led their teams to the CHSAA playoffs this past season. The basketball team advanced to the quaterfinals before falling to Cardinal Hayes H.S., the Bronx, while the baseball team was eliminated with losses to St. Raymond’s H.S. and Cardinal Spellman H.S., both the Bronx.

Molloy’s president, Richard Karsten, said both coaches are the right men to lead their respective programs.