deane is from rockland county, new york, and attended potsdam state university, where he was a small college all-american and began his career as a coach in 1974. he later coached at oswego state and had his first division 1 position at michigan state university and his first job as head coach at siena, from 1986 to 1994. he recorded his 400th career victory on december 15, 2007 against the university of maryland eastern shore. he has coached three different division i schools to the ncaa tournament (siena, marquette, and lamar). his siena team upset stanford in the 1989 ncaa tournament in the first round of the east region.