Mike Gaffey encourages his players on the sidelines at Penn State Harrisburg where the former Palmyra and A-C head coach is making a name for himself. (PHOTO COURTESY OF PSU HARRISBURG)

But these days, the process of helping mold young men into productive basketball players and quality people isn't as all-consuming as it once was for the former Palmyra and Annville-Cleona head coach.

It's still extremely important, mind you, but not to the degree that it has any chance of interfering with the more important job of being an involved father helping to raise his two children, Scott, 16, and Victoria, 11, with wife Stephanie.

In a sense, it's a best-of-both worlds life for Gaffey now. He's successfully juggling family life with a full-time teaching career in the Steelton-Highspire School District and a busy, but rewarding, part-time job as the head men's basketball coach at Penn State Harrisburg, where he's turned a once-floundering program into a championship-level one.

Gaffey's story is the latest installment of the monthly Daily News feature, "Where Are They Now," which focuses on former prominent local athletes and coaches and their current lives and careers.

"It's really meant a lot, but it's funny, I don't know if it's as gratifying as some of the success I had at Palmyra and Annville," Gaffey said, of taking PSU Harrisburg from an eight-win team in his first season four years ago to two straight regular-season conference championships the last two years. "Now that I'm older, and as my children get older, I'm also cognizant, because I've been so involved in basketball for the last 25 years, that when my kids are involved in something I want to make sure that I can get to their event."

Gaffey began the process of elevating the Penn State Harrisburg program, which won a school-record 20 games this season and came within a victory of an NCAA Tournament berth, by bringing in a couple players he coached at the high-school level, Kenton Alston from Steel-High and Brian Barry from Annville-Cleona. They helped Gaffey implement the same type of respectful - foul language is not permitted from players or coaches - team-focused culture that helped bring him success in high school.

Gaffey, who still resides in Palmyra, is also in the unique position of having a former player as his boss, former Susquehanna Township and Penn State standout Rahsaan Carlton, who played for Gaffey's father Bill when the younger Gaffey was serving as an assistant coach.

That, and the fact that college hoops is minus the open gyms and summer leagues that makes high-school coaching a year-round proposition, has further enhanced Gaffey's ability to spend as much time being a dad as being a coach. There's still, of course, recruiting to be done, but even that work can be scheduled around family time.

"It's given me that family peace that I needed," Gaffey said. "Obviously, you have to recruit, but I can recruit on my own schedule. Even if it's a four-star recruit that we really, really need or really, really want, if my son (a member of the JV team at Palmyra) has a game or my daughter has a musical performance, I still have that option (of being there)."

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WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Gaffey still at home on sideline