Brother Ralph, S.C.

Brother Ralph, S.C., coached the St. Aloysius JV basketball team for nine years before taking over the varsity squad in 1939-40 when Danny Lyons left the faculty.

• The Crusaders responded by winning the school's first state championship.
• C Herb Jefferson and G Sammy Trombatore, both juniors, made the All-State team.

The state champs were rewarded with a trip to Chicago to play in the National Catholic High School Championship tournament at Loyola University.

• The Crusaders had participated in the twenty-year-old tournament twice before, 1937 and 1938. In both cases, they won the first game but lost the second. Unfortunately, that same pattern prevailed again in 1940.
• SA's first opponent was Regis High School from Denver. The Crimson five won easily, 59-31, setting a new high-scoring record for the tournament.
• In the next game, the Crusaders bowed in a heartbreaker to Power Memorial from New York City, 37-34. Behind 31-20 entering Q4, the Saints staged a valiant rally "but the final whistle blew before any additional points could be scored."

Ryan Donegan (2000) has excelled in a sport that doesn't get as much publicity as many others – squash.

• Ryan began playing squash when he was 12 years old. He learned the game from his step-father, who was a racquetball player. "I mainly played as a hobby to my other more serious sports at the time, which were basketball, golf, and baseball." As he became better in squash, he decided to concentrate on that sport.
• In his senior year at Brother Martin, Donegan finished fifth at the National Closed Junior Squash Championships held at Yale.
• As a freshman at Dartmouth, Ryan played #1 on the squash team, which finished 5th in the nation. He was recognized as Ivy League Rookie of the Year – the first Big Green player to win that award, First Team All-Ivy, and Second Team All-American.
• The next year, he again made first team All-Ivy but moved up to first team All-America as voted by the College Squash Association.
• As a junior, Ryan became the first Dartmouth squash player to be selected All-American each year for his first three years. He finished the season #10 in collegiate rankings and #6 in U.S. rankings.
• His senior year was more of the same, All-Ivy and All-America. He became the first squash player inducted into the Wearers of the Green, which is the Dartmouth Athletic Hall of Fame.

Ryan has continued to play squash since graduating from Dartmouth in 2005.

• He competes in squash tournaments around the nation.
• In 2008, he was a member of the U.S. team that earned the Gold medal at the Pan American Squash Federation Cup held in Cuenca, Ecuador. Ryan won the Bronze medal in the individual competition.

Donegan is a Senior Business Analyst at Growthink, an investment banking firm in Los Angeles.