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July 2, 2002--University of Delaware men's basketball coach David Henderson announced July 1 that Kenny Blakeney will return to the program as an assistant coach, effective immediately.
Blakeney replaces Josh Oppenheimer, who resigned last month to join Dave Leiato's staff at DePaul.
Blakeney, 30, served as an assistant coach with Delaware under coach Mike Brey for three seasons (1997-2000). After the 1999-2000 season, Blakeney decided to step away from coaching in order to pursue a business venture. He and former Duke University teammate Thomas Hill founded World One Sports Academy in Dallas.
Last season, Blakeney returned to the coaching ranks as an assistant coach at St. Bonaventure.
"We are very excited that Kenny has chosen to come back to Delaware," Henderson said. "When I first took over the program, I had hoped that Kenny would stay on staff with me. At that time, he wanted to pursue other interests, and we left the door open. This time around, he wanted to come on board and we both believe he can be a great asset to our program."
During Blakeney's previous tenure at Delaware, the Blue Hens earned two NCAA Tournament berths and also the school's first-ever NIT bid. Delaware appeared in the America East title game all three of Blakeney's seasons at Delaware, winning two of them, and going 69-24 in those seasons.
Prior to his first stint at Delaware, Blakeney, a native of Washington, D.C., played high school basketball under the legendary Morgan Wootten at DeMatha High School, played collegiately under Mike Krzyzewski at Duke and began his coaching career as an assistant under Speedy Morris at LaSalle (1996-97) and at James Madison under Lefty Driesell (1995-96).
Blakeney is a 1995 Duke graduate with a degree in history. During his four collegiate playing seasons, the Blue Devils were a combined 99-34, including three 20-win seasons. He appeared in 93 career games as a Blue Devil. He was a redshirt member of the Blue Devils' 1990-91 national championship team. In 1991-92, he was a key reserve on Duke's NCAA title team when he played in 29 games. As a senior co-captain in 1994-95, he played in 27 games and averaged 5.4 points per game.
A native of Washington, D.C., Blakeney played his high school basketball at DeMatha under Basketball Hall of Fame member and head coach Morgan Wootten.
At DeMatha, Blakeney was selected as the Gatorade Player of the Year for the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia in 1989-90. He was selected to the Capital Classic and Great Western Shootout All-Star Games and was a member of the Converse All-American Team. In his senior season, he averaged 18 points, seven rebounds and four assists per game.
A three-year varsity member at DeMatha, Blakeney was a first-team Prince George's Journal All-County selection and first-team Washington Post All-Metro selection.
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