Leonard said<\/a>. \u201cI started wearing joyous holiday sweaters, ugly Christmas sweaters, but I started doing it during games. People really liked them. The players really thought it was funny. It kind of brought a light mood to what we sometimes overthink things.<\/p>\n\u201cI wore one for the day after Thanksgiving. It went viral. (It had a turkey on the front and on the back said: \u201cLeftovers are for quitters.\u201d) I had one for Hanukkah when we played Wake Forest. I had one for Kwanzaa when I was at Auburn. I wore two Christmas ones. I wore Martin Luther King for Black History Month, Presidents Day, Groundhog Day.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked about his NCAA Tournament outfit, Leonard pointed to his Irish heritage. Though Leonard\u2019s coaching attire is unusual, so are his results.<\/p>\n
Leonard is the first coach to lead Queens to an NCAA Tournament appearance. He took over the program in 2022, the same year the school\u2019s men\u2019s basketball program moved up to Division I.<\/p>\n
Leonard led Queens to gradual improvement each season, culminating in the team winning the ASUN Tournament this season and punching its ticket to the Big Dance. Now, Grant Leonard is excited to see his team perform on a national stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cQueens is an amazing place. It is life changing,\u201d Leonard said. \u201cQueen\u2019s mission is provide a transformational educational experience to our students. It is a very student-centered culture. But I have been there 13 years, and it has provided a life-changing experience to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore people need to know about how unique and special Queens is, Charlotte, Myers Park how beautiful the neighborhood is, but how the education, it really prepares people for their next phase in life in a special way. I have been at six schools, and this is by far the most special place I have ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queens head coach Grant Leonard stole the spotlight from the sidelines Friday with his hilarious St. Patrick\u2019s Day-themed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-170351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}