Tom Danehy coaches his basketball team at Amphitheater High School like he is a father of his players, a method that has proven results.
The Panthers dispatched visiting Phoenix St. Mary’s 55-26 on Thursday night in a 4A play-in game, an outcome that Danehy said is the school’s first postseason victory — a remarkable achievement inasmuch as Amphi opened its doors in 1939 as Tucson’s second high school after Tucson High.
The Panthers are also predominantly underclassmen with only one senior in the starting lineup along with three juniors and a sophomore. Danehy has eight players listed on his roster and uses mostly a six-player rotation.
True to form as a dad figure, Danehy is most proud about his team’s academic standing.
“My favorite thing — the team’s grade-point average is 4.2,” Danehy said. “Everybody takes AP (Advanced Placement) courses. They’re straight-A students. To me, that’s infinitely more important — everybody says it but I really mean it — it’s infinitely more important than winning and losing.”
Amphi coach Tom Danehy is in his fourth season leading the Panther program and has also coached at Green Fields and Immaculate Heart over the last two decades. He mentioned that tonight’s 55-26 victory over St. Mary’s in the 4A play-in game is the school’s first postseason win in… pic.twitter.com/0FhubmGKov
— Javier Morales (@JavierJMorales) February 21, 2025
No. 13 Amphi (15-11) will play at No. 4 Mesa Eastmark (19-3) in the first round of the 4A state tournament on Thursday at 7 p.m.
With Danehy sitting on their bench, the Panthers will go into that game with confidence.
That’s what he does — sit.
Rarely does he stand. He does not pace along the bench. He also directs practically all of his comments from the bench toward his players, not the refs. He takes pride in not having a technical foul in his two decades of coaching with stops also at Green Fields and Immaculate Heart.
An award-winning sports columnist with the Tucson Weekly and TucsonLocalMedia.com, Danehy is as astute as they come.
A few minutes before the game with St. Mary’s, he chatted with a player on the bench when the others warmed up.
His players looked over to him at the bench and laughed, drawing a smile from him a few moments before tipoff.
Some may mistake the approach as being too lax with his players, especially with the biggest game of the season approaching.
You can’t criticize success.
Amphi’s three leading scorers in its 55-26 win over St. Mary’s in the 4A play-in game tonight are indicative of the young talent coach Tom Danehy is working with – juniors Monica Verrett (19 points) and Kayla Tuokalau (11) and sophomore Erika Gaxiola (15). They are also honor… pic.twitter.com/ZYwIGqx4dK
— Javier Morales (@JavierJMorales) February 21, 2025
“I honestly love my coach. He’s great. I feel like he really pushes us to be our best,” said junior forward Kayla Tuokalau, a burgeoning talent in basketball who plans to become a lawyer. “Most of the time, he lets us work together and build team chemistry.”
“I feel like he cares about his players,” said sophomore starting off guard Erika Gaxiola, who envisions herself having a career in medicine as a surgeon.
“He’s like family to me,” said junior ultra-quick point guard Monica Verrett, a future therapist or fashion designer. “He’s a great person. On and off the court, he supports us. He believed in me when no one else would and helped me get to the point I am right now. I’m really grateful.”
Verrett and her teammates are at a point where they are eagerly anticipating the future, not only the 4A state playoffs but also their lives.
The wrong perception of an inner-city school such as Amphi: Students are not forward-thinkers or disciplined.
Danehy’s players do not fit that prejudice.
“We have study table, and I have some free time; I tutor kids when they need it,” Danehy said. “I impressed upon them the importance of this. I’ve said, ‘How many of you are going to play college basketball? Maybe one? Maybe? … The rest of you need to go to college and better yourselves and make a better life for yourself than your family has.'”
Danehy mentioned that he has tried to help his players overcome the struggle to learn with an appropriate mindset after the pandemic derailed that when they were in middle school.
“A lot of these kids, the pandemic hurt them with that year of learning at home,” he said. “I know students who were A students in middle school, and after the pandemic, it was Bs and Cs. It was like, ‘Oh, who cares?’
“I challenged Kayla, especially, ‘You’re not a dumb kid. You’re a smart kid.’ I said, ‘I expect straight As from you.’ I told her that during the summer and she’s got straight As. She takes AP classes. I said, ‘That’s going to get you in college more than that hard drive to the basket.’ It really is.”
Danehy is a well-deserved recent addition to the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame.
He has impacted young athletes in the community for the last four decades.
He continues to operate non-profit basketball leagues year round with an effort to enrich young lives with healthy competition rather than be relegated to street life or staying home and playing video games.
He has a background of leading the basketball, tennis, track and field, golf and flag football programs at Amphi, Immaculate Heart and Green Fields.
Danehy’s career record in 18 seasons as a varsity basketball coach is 370-150 including his stops at Green Fields and Immaculate Heart. He has at least 500 wins as a head coach when factoring all the sports and levels of competition he has experienced.
He returned to Amphi four years ago after leading the freshman girls hoops teams there from 1997 to 2000. His last two teams finished 18-0.
Coincidentally, that time frame is when Amphi won its one and only region title in girls basketball.
The 1998-99 team won the 5A Southern title and set a school record with 21 wins under head coach Phil Reynolds with Danehy as an assistant. The Panthers lost their first-round game in the state playoffs that year to Mesa Mountain View.
Amphi came close to winning the 4A Gila title this season, finishing two games behind Douglas. The Panthers won at Douglas on Jan. 21 and could have clinched the title via a tiebreaker with the Bulldogs but lost 48-37 at home on Feb. 6.
The Panthers’ success playing with mostly a six-player rotation is another indicator of Danehy’s coaching ability. It is not a new challenge for him. He mostly played five players when Immaculate Heart finished 28-4 one season.
“At the beginning of the year, I had outside people say, ‘You can’t survive like that. You’re in trouble. You can’t play five or six kids the whole time,'” Danehy said of his limited roster. “I just challenged them (his players). I said, ‘You guys are going to have to play the whole game, you just are.’
“After the sixth person, it fell off the table. I said, ‘If you’re going to win, you have to get in better shape.’ They ran themselves into shape and you see the results.”
Verrett, an accomplished sprinter at Amphi, led the Panthers with 19 points against St. Mary’s.
She outscored St. Mary’s on her own in the first half with 14 points, leading Amphi to a 32-12 lead at halftime.
The Panthers outscored the Knights 21-2 in the second quarter. Verrett had seven points in the quarter and Gaxiola and Tuokalau each had six.
Gaxiola finished with 15 points and Tuokalau had 11.
Kiara Newsome, the lone senior starter, had five points and junior starter Kimora Blackmon made a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter for her scoring. Ines Amparo, a senior who is the top reserve, made a layup in the third quarter.
None of them have played for a club team.
Tuokalau, who runs the floor well as a 5-foot-11 forward and has rebounding skills, intends to play on a club team this summer with Verrett.
Danehy said his players represent Amphi in summer tournaments that are financially manageable. He also runs summer leagues at Amphi’s old gym that are free of cost.
“I feel like we’re making a name for ourselves and for our school,” Tuokalau said. “It’s great to finally actually be seen for what we can do. I feel like we’re one of the best teams in Arizona.
“It’s great to finally get that exposure.”
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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