Mulligan’s legacy is carried on by his sons

Chris Yemma

It’s not blood that runs through the Mulligan veins, it’s basketball.

Former UC Irvine men’s basketball coach Bill Mulligan has passed

his coaching genes on to his two sons -- Brian and Shawn.

Mulligan, 74, coached at UCI from 1980-’91, guiding the Anteaters

to first-round NIT wins in 1982 and 1986, while also being named

Coach of the Year in 1986 when his Anteater team defeated perennial

power UNLV twice in 12 days.

Now, his two sons are keeping the coaching tradition alive. Brian

Mulligan, 44, coaches the Capistrano Valley High boys basketball team

and Shawn Mulligan, 45, coaches the boys basketball team at San

Clemente.

The elder Mulligan, now retired, spends his days bouncing from

court to court -- from Capo Valley to San Clemente to UCI --

watching, enjoying and critiquing.

But when it comes down to head-to-head matchups between his two

sons, Mulligan is at a loss.

To add insult to injury, both high school teams are in the South

Coast League, meaning they face each other twice each season.

“It’s really tough,” Mulligan said. “I’d kind of like to see Shawn

win because Brian has beaten him six or seven times. Brian has won

all of them.”

Currently, Brian Mulligan’s Capo Valley team (18-2) is sitting atop the league with a 4-0 league record. San Clemente (15-7, 2-2 in

league) remains in the chase pack.

Bill Mulligan’s third team, the Anteaters, are 8-6, 3-4 in the Big

West Conference and are coached by Pat Douglass, a good friend of

Mulligan’s.

The former basketball coach resides in faculty housing at UCI,

where he has lived the past 20 years with his wife Dorothy. Before

that, his 40 years of coaching took him all over the place.

He started at Long Beach Poly, coaching the basketball and

football teams. He made his way through USC as an assistant coach,

Riverside City College and Saddleback Community College, UCI and

Irvine Valley College as a head coach.

His UCI career brought him 163 wins over the course of 11 years

and the impact of his early success led to the construction of the

Bren Events Center.

But with his coaching days over, Mulligan coaches vicariously

through his sons.

“I’ll be seeing one of them in about 20 minutes,” Mulligan said

last week. “Then I’ll see the other one later this week.”

And during his down time, he makes do.

“I read a lot and I stay up late,” he said. “But it’s hard being

old.”