Matt Droney, admittedly, ran his mouth a little too much when he was a kid. Mix that with his passion for basketball and it didn’t always come out the right way.
When Droney was in fifth grade, he was playing in a game for his travel team in Canton, Mass., when he became frustrated. During a timeout, he told coach Rich Trabucco his thoughts about what the team should be doing, and Trabucco got fed up.
“He kind of just threw his hands up and was like, ‘All right Matt, you do it then,’” Droney recalled. “And I said, ‘All right.’ I took the board and drew up a play.
“My memory is that we scored, and I kind of gave a look over to Rich and he’s kind of giving me a look like, ‘You little…’”
It’s a story that Droney and his friends still laugh about years later, but one that, amusingly, spoke to his early coaching chops and led to his path today as a first-time head coach. Droney – who had a standout playing career at Babson College before becoming an assistant coach at the school – was named the new head coach at Dexter Southfield on June 13.
Droney always seemed destined to be a coach because he was a natural leader on the court. After starring at Catholic Memorial, Droney played one season at Stonehill before transferring to Babson in 2014, and his direct style as a leader immediately stood out to coach Stephen Brennan. Before Droney’s senior season in 2016, Brennan remembers a moment that had never happened to him in his career as a coach. The team was doing a defensive drill during a practice, Brennan blew his whistle, and then Droney spoke up.
“He just said, ‘Hey, that sucked. Let’s do it again,’” Brennan recalled. “(It was) let's make sure we hit the right standard every day. We’re here to win, that’s all we’re thinking about. Put your stats to the right and we’re all locked in on winning.”
Babson went on that season to win the Division 3 national championship, the program’s first. It capped an historic three-year run for Babson that also included a Final Four appearance in 2015, and Droney was a fixture of it all.
“I think he’s always been a very confident person and not arrogant, but just confident,” Brennan said. “That’s always been a hallmark. I think the biggest thing with him, his ability to build positive relationships with players, with parents, with coaches, has been with him his whole life. He’s just so good at building positive relationships and yet, can still be in your grill about stuff. And there’s a respect that he commands because they know he’s invested.”
After graduating from Babson, Droney spent one season as an assistant coach at Vassar, then another season as an assistant at MIT before returning to Babson on Brennan’s staff in 2019. In 2021, Droney became a full-time assistant coach and his responsibilities grew every year. He was the program’s recruiting coordinator over the last three seasons, and Brennan credited Droney with helping Babson become a Top 25 defense in the country.
As Droney surveyed head-coaching jobs, there wasn’t much movement on the college circuit this spring. But a connection helped spur his path to Dexter Southfield. Jamie Rice, the men’s hockey coach at Babson, knows Paul Pearl, the new athletic director at Dexter Southfield and former men’s hockey coach at Holy Cross, and recommended Droney for their boys basketball opening. The rest is history.
“(It) became more and more evident to me that the leadership at Dexter is full of great people and they really want to win and they want to have a successful program,” Droney said. “I was really impressed with the quality of people over there and the resources and their vision for the boys basketball program.”
While all of his coaching experience is at the college level, Droney is looking forward to building a program at the prep school level, where he believes his strength as a relationship builder will suit him for the job.
“I think for me, it starts with relationships,” Droney said. “I want to be a mentor for all these guys. I think that was one of the things that excited me most about making the switch from college to prep schools, was just having an opportunity to work with kids at a younger age when they’re a little bit more impressionable and they’re still trying to find themselves as a person. I love the idea of being able to make an impact on their lives and helping them to reach their goals and reach their next destinations, those things really appealed to me.”
Dexter Southfield moved from Class B to Class A in the NEPSAC two years ago, and Droney wants to help the program make the Class A playoffs for the first time. He understands there will be a process, but savors the challenge that awaits him.
“From a basketball perspective, I feel really confident that I can create a really clear set of expectations that we can work towards every day,” Droney said. “I’m really hopeful that my seven years as a college coach will allow me to bring a high level of organization and a high level of structure to a prep school program and really try to have it function like a small college program.”
