Bob Mulcahy, coach of Seneca KHSAA Sweet 16 champs and Wes Unseld, dies at 94
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Bob Mulcahy, head coach of the Seneca High School boys basketball team that won back-to-back state titles in 1963 and 1964 behind the play of standouts Mike Redd and Wes Unseld, died Feb. 12.
Mulcahy, who died in Evansville, Indiana, after a brief illness, was 94.
Mulcahy was the first varsity basketball coach at Seneca and compiled a 125-14 record in five seasons there (1959-64).
Jon Fleischaker, now a Louisville attorney who played for Mulcahy at Seneca, said the coach was “very disciplined.”
“He’d go after you if you did something wrong,” Fleischaker said. “He handled each of his players differently. … If you made a mistake you knew it. He didn’t soft-pedal it.”
His 1962-63 squad, led by Kentucky Mr. Basketball winner Redd, finished 31-1 and beat Lexington Dunbar 72-66 in the state final.
The next season, with Unseld taking Mr. Basketball honors during his senior year, Seneca finished 29-2 and beat Breckinridge County 66-56 in the state final.
Tom Duggins, a teammate of Unseld’s at Seneca, said Mulcahy played a big hand in the development of Unseld, who “couldn't dribble the length of the court without losing the ball” as a freshman.
“That's where Coach Mulcahy doesn't get the credit he should,” Duggins said. “He taught everyone how to play the game the right way. He stuck with us and made us what we were.”
Commenting on Unseld’s death in 2020, Mulcahy recalled, “Westley had the heart and the mind and wanted to be a basketball player. … We didn’t win a game all year when he was a freshman. We had a perfect year.”
Mulcahy left Seneca for the college ranks in 1964, serving as the freshman coach at Kansas for three seasons (1964-67), the head coach at South Dakota for six seasons (1967-73) and the head coach at Eastern Kentucky for three seasons (1973-76).
He returned to high school coaching at Henderson County, where he was head coach for four seasons (1978-82) before becoming the school’s athletics director.
Mulcahy also was a standout player, earning first-team All-State honors as a senior and leading Lafayette to the 1950 state championship.
Mulcahy had the opportunity to play for Adolph Rupp at the University of Kentucky but ultimately chose Eastern Kentucky because he believed he had a better chance to play as a freshman.
“I had dreamed about going to Kentucky because I sure was a fan,” Mulcahy told the Henderson Gleaner newspaper in 2021. “I used to cry sometimes when they lost.”
Mulcahy was inducted into the South Dakota Coyote Sports Hall of Fame in 1989, the Dawahares/KHSAA Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021.
Memorial services will be held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Henderson at noon on Feb. 21, with visitation to follow in the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Parish Hall.
Jason Frakes: 502-582-4046; jfrakes@courier-journal.com; Follow on X @kyhighs.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Bob Mulcahy obit, KHSAA basketball Sweet 16 champ, coach of Wes Unseld
