Timmy McCarthy

Timmy McCarthy has had a highly distinguished career in basketball as a player, coach and broadcaster.

Hall of Fame induction

2023

---

International Federations Cup

1983

---

National Cup

Winner

---

National League

1980, 1984, 1989, 1995/96

---

Roy Curtis Winner

1993

---

Clubs associated with

Blue Demons, Tralee Tigers,

---

After playing with Iona and GH74 at juvenile level, McCarthy would blossom into one of the outstanding Irish players of the 1980s, where he was noted for his basketball smarts and scoring ability, McCarthy would  play 103 times for the senior national team (including 58 times as its captain), and despite sustaining a career-threatening leg injury in 1985,  with Blue Demons of Cork he’d win three leagues (1980, 1984 and 1989), three National Championships, a National Cup and in 1983 he captained the team to a historical Federation Cup victory, a highly-prestigious competition at the time featuring teams from England, Wales and Scotland.

Then after surprisingly retiring at the peak of his powers at the age of 29 (that same 1988-89 season he’d won the Irish Player of the Year, the National League and captained Ireland to a Promotions Cup final), he turned his attention to coaching where he again excelled.

In 1993 he helped Demons win the Roy Curtis international tournament. In 1995-96 he would mastermind the first-ever top-flight title won by a Tralee team, inspiring the Tigers to a Superleague title. The following season he led Blue Demons to a memorable U19 National Cup final win over a highly-talented Killester team; that triumph would provide Demons with the platform and nucleus of a side that would not just return the club to the Superleague but make such an impact in it throughout the new millennium.

In 1998 he was head coach of the first Irish U16 girls’ team to compete at the European championships level in over a decade. Then in 2001 he was head coach to the senior men’s team in the European championship qualifiers.

He’d continue to coach throughout the years. Based in the Athlone area for over 20 years now, he coached Kiltoom to a 2003 Community Games U16s title and Marist College to an U19 All Ireland boys school league title in 2006. However over the past couple of decades he has become best known for his media work.

After being a co-commentator to Ger Canning for multiple National Cup finals weekends since the early 1990s, McCarthy was elevated to lead commentator for RTE’s basketball coverage of the 2004 Athens Games. A further four Olympiads later he continues to go coast-to-coast and ecstatically acknowledge successful efforts from ‘Downtown!’, helping further popularise a sport which he has given and achieved in so much.