Contributed Toronto basketball coach Sean Tucker is greeted by his wife, Wendy, and daughters, Kinsey and Delaney, after being inducted into the District 5 Coaches Association Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Harrison Central High School.

Sean Tucker has been on a high school basketball sideline for nearly two decades.

When he got the nod for the District 5 Coaches Association Hall of Fame recently, it became evident to the longtime coach he’s earned the respect of his peers in that time.

Tucker, the long-time Toronto head coach, was inducted into a HOF in a ceremony at Harrison Central High School last week prior to coaching in the District 5 All-Star Game.

“It’s extremely humbling,” he said. “It was an unbelievable honor to know that you’re being inducted into a coaches association hall of fame that has so many great coaches already in there. A lot of the guys, you see their names and you remember them from being a kid and watching them coach.

“I started my career out coaching alongside a lot of those guys and having Coach Joe Dunlevy be the one who nominated me to be put on the ballot and to be voted upon by my peers, it’s very humbling. You’re voted upon for this award by your peers and that just says a lot of what they think about you. It’s just really humbling.”

In his 18 years coaching at the high school level, eight at Catholic Central and the last 10 with the Red Knights, Tucker has amassed 249 wins.

“You want to do it for the right reasons every single day,” Tucker said. “You step foot out there and you try to mentor kids. There’s a lot of guys out there that do this for the right reasons and the right purpose who don’t worry about the wins as much as it is changing people’s lives.”

His Catholic Central teams went 103-75, won five-straight city rivalry games against Big Red and went to the OVAC title game twice.

Prior to that, he was the head coach for two seasons at Jefferson Community College for two seasons.

His coaching career, however, began in Toronto, driving back and forth to coach a youth team when he was still in college. The last decade leading the Red Knights to 146 victories has brought things full circle.

This past season, Toronto won its first OVAC title in more than two decades and were ranked as high as No. 5 in the state. Tucker is currently the second winningest coach in the program’s history.

He has been the district coach of the year twice.

“It’s a feeling that is kind of surreal,” he said. “Looking back at when I started the career at Catholic Central for the eight years that I was there, I was surrounded by great coaches, great players, great student-athletes. We had a lot of success in the eight years that I was there. That has a lot to do with the players and all the assistant coaches. It was a great time.

“Then moving on to Toronto to a new adventure and starting over where I spent the last ten years has truly been an honor, because I started coaching there when I was in college. I drove back and forth to coach the fifth and sixth grade basketball team in Toronto. I’ve been there the last ten years and devoted the last ten years of your life to that school, the town, and the kids. It means a lot. It really means a lot. The kids at Toronto, I’ve been very blessed with having great kids and being surrounded by great coaches from our youth teams all the way up to high school.

“When you get inducted into something like this and you get an award like this, it’s really hard to accept this award without giving praise to the people who put you in this position. If we didn’t have a lot of success doing it the right way the last 18 years with the players that we’ve had and the coaches that we’ve had, this doesn’t really happen. I know a lot of people that have coached a long time and they haven’t been given this opportunity. To have this opportunity, I’m truly blessed because of the hard work and dedication of all those coaches that coached alongside of me. All the players that played for me over the last 18 years, all the administration at Toronto, the support that I have there to allow me to do the things that I envisioned to do when I took the job. Our athletic director, our superintendent are just absolutely amazing.

“When you have support systems like I have been blessed with, it kind of makes your job easy. You wake up every day and you want to go do that job. My mom always told me that if you love something and you’re passionate about it, it doesn’t really become a job, it becomes something that you love to do and it just becomes something that you’re a part of. Coaching high school basketball and coaching at Toronto has just been a part of me.”

Tucker also was quick to point out that supporting cast starts at home.

“In order to be able to be successful in coaching all these years and having a family at home, the support system has to start there,” Tucker said. “I’ve had the support of my wife (Wendy) the last 20 years, and obviously the support of both my daughters, Kinsey and Delaney, for the last 18 years, and able to share my time with everybody else. I have to thank them before anybody.

“They are the ones who have told me to continue to coach, so I must be doing something right. It was really special to share this with them.”

Having his name alongside his own coach and mentor, Joe Dunlevy, and several other great coaches he’s watched and admired makes the honor that much more special.

“It’s amazing to see all those guys that are in there and you watch them as you go through your career and you kind of take things from those guys when you coach against them,” Tucker said. “You coach against them for years and you kind of take some of the things that they do and try to implement them in your program. Some of the things that you see them do in the offseason and stuff that they do during timeouts, stuff that they do preseason, stuff that they do during practices. You learn a lot from them. If you want to be great at something, you’ve got to want to learn every day.

“If you stop learning, I think that’s where you don’t continue to grow as a coach. One of the things that’s great is we have a great network of coaches around here. We have a great bond. It’s a great brotherhood to be a part of.”

Beyond coaching the game, Tucker has served as the District 5 President from 2016-2018, an OVAC Basketball Committee member since 2022, District 5 Scholarship Committee

member since 2021, and D4 Liaison since 2021. In 2018, he was named the Director of the Eastern Ohio Basketball Camp, a role that he continues to serve in today.

He also started the Todd Kalivoda Holiday Showcase, which hosts more and more teams in the Gem City each season.

Outside of basketball, Tucker serves the area’s youth as a Probation Officer for the Jefferson County Juvenile Probation Department. He also operated a family-owned landscaping business.