Northwood basketball coach Tim O’Brien ‘cancer free;’ inducted into Hall of Fame Saturday

Northwood boys basketball coach Tim O’Brien will be honored Saturday. (Photo courtesy O’Brien family).

Northwood boys basketball Coach Tim O’Brien said Friday he is cancer free and looking forward to being inducted into the Southern California Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame Saturday.

The induction of O’Brien along with former Irvine, Sage Hill and Glendale Coach Steve Keith and former Santa Margarita girls coach Rich Schaff will take place at halftime of the open division championship game at Cal Baptist, according to Greg Coombs, Godinez basketball coach and executive director of the organization.

“It’s pretty cool and I’m cleared to be out,” O’Brien said of the honor. “There are good days and bad days and tomorrow will definitely be a very good day for me.”

O’Brien took the past year off from coaching to recover after a cancer diagnosis.

“I’m getting better and stronger every day,” O’Brien said. “I just have to be patient. I’m still in harms way and it takes about a year to recover. So I’m going to take my time, but progressing forward.”

Yousof Etemadi was Northwood’s acting coach this past season but O’Brien was very much part of the season.

“I was involved as much as I could from behind the computer screen getting all the information 12 hours later,” he said.

O’Brien said he recently retired from teaching after 42 years but he still intends to coach at Northwood. He’s been a coach in Orange County for 35 years. 23 years as a head high school basketball coach.

“I made other stops at different levels along the way, or just took time off to recharge  to fill in the other years,” he said.

O’Brien has recorded 470 wins, nine league titles, one CIF title and one state title. Two of his teams had CIF runner-up finishes.

He was Northwood’s first coach when it opened it 1999 and has been the head coach for 13 of those years (over two stints) with 262 wins so far.

O’Brien has also coached at Estancia, Tustin, Santiago and Orange Coast College and at Mesa Community College in Arizona and Saguaro High School in Arizona.

Well respected among coaching colleagues and high school players, O’Brien has had many victories over his career.

But he said:

“Biggest win ever occurred in the summer of 2018 when after being diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (cancer) on April 10 2018, to be cancer free on July 30, 2018,” he said. “Best victory of all.”

As for the future:

“This cancer takes about a year to recover if all goes well,” he said. “I do hope to return to full time coaching some day, but no more classroom teaching. Coaching is my calling and I miss it. I am anxious to see what plans God has for me moving forward.”

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com