Draft:Aaron McCarthy (basketball)

Aaron McCarthy (born November 24, 1961) is an American basketball coach who, among other things, has coached several clubs in the German Basketball-Bundesliga. The father of three also coached the Belgium club Royal Basket Club from Pepinster and worked in Finland and Asian countries.

Career
As a player, McCarthy first belonged to the basketball team at the University of California-Santa Barbara, then to the team at Weber State University (1983 to 1985).

After two years of organizational duties at St. Joseph's High School in his home country, McCarthy became an assistant coach for the Utah Utes, the University of Utah's varsity team, in 1987. After a year, he moved to Europe as head coach and coached the local professional basketball team in Ghent, Belgium. At the end of November 1988 he also became the Belgian national coach. In 1992, he won the Belgian Cup competition with Gent. After a stopover in Braine-l’Alleud, he came to Bayreuth, Franconia, for the 1994/95 season. He worked there under sports director Lester Habegger. McCarthy came under criticism as the season progressed. The young coach, whom Habegger supported in some of his training, was troubled by the small squad and the injury-related loss of development player Derrick Taylor. Nevertheless, McCarthy and the Bayreuth team managed to make it into the championship round as third in the Bundesliga southern season, where they were eliminated in the quarter-finals against Alba Berlin.

After one season, he moved to Finland and trained in Helsinki, Torpan Pojat, one of the most renowned Finnish basketball clubs, with whom he was three times Finnish champion from 1996 to 1998 and cup winner in 1996 and 1997 and vice cup winner in 1998. As the successor to Henrik Dettmann, he also served as national coach of the Finnish team from 1997 to 2001. After being sacked by Torpan Pojat in November 1999, he worked in Espoo at Honka as sports director in 2000. In February 2001, he went back to Belgium and coached the top club Telindus from Ostend, which he led to the championship and cup victory in Belgium. However, he was released again in November of the same year. In March 2003, he finally came back to Franconia and became Keith Gray's successor at the X-Rays from Würzburg. By increasing the Bundesliga by two teams for the 2003/04 season, remaining in the league was secured despite a relegation place. After relegation was achieved in sport in the following season, relegation could no longer be avoided in the 2004/05 season.

In January 2006, McCarthy finally found a new commitment with the Tigers from Tübingen as the successor to Patrick Elzie. After relegation, his contract was extended and in the following 2006/07 season, McCarthy and the team came close to the play-off places for the German championship. After a failed start to the 2007/08 season, McCarthy was released by the Tübingen team in December 2007. From September 2008, he worked as a national coach in Lebanon, before he looked after the Parkland Donguan team in China in 2009, with which he won the NBL championship. He then trained Fujian SBS XunXin from the Chinese province of Fujian. After his dismissal in February 2010, he was signed by relegation-threatened Bundesliga club TBB Trier as Yves Defraigne's successor, so he returned to Germany again. Despite successfully staying in the league, his contract was not extended. His successor in Trier was Henrik Rödl for the 2010/2011 season. At the end of December 2010, McCarthy became coach in Belgium again, this time at the Royal Basket Club from Pepinster, which, however, had the worst record of all Belgian first division teams in the 2011/12 season, which is why his contract was not extended.

In the 2017/18 season he took over a coaching position again and looked after Al-Ahli in Bahrain. In 2018/19, McCarthy worked in Iraq, where he was coach of Al Shorta. n the 2019/20 season he looked after the Al-Ittihad Jeddah team in Saudi Arabia.