Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on July 30, 2015
NORTHAMPTON — Joe Mantegna Jr. watched two basketball scrimmages from the second rung of the bleachers inside Smith Vocational’s gym on Wednesday morning.
The third day of the Northampton native’s basketball camp needed to wrap up, so Mantegna checked his watch and blew his whistle. The scrimmages paused, the teams rearranged and played a few more minutes.
For a coach of 24 years, it was just another day at the office, except only a handful of the athletes were over 5-feet tall.
“This is very much grassroots,” Mantegna said. “To come back here and work with elementary age kids in my hometown, to teach basketball at the fundamental level, is great to keep me grounded.”
Mantegna, who graduated from Northampton High in 1987, is entering his 17th season at Blair Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey. He is chasing his 300th career win, sitting at 287-119, and has turned the boys basketball program into one of the country’s top prep programs.
“I just wanted to be a high school coach like my dad,” Mantegna, 46, said. “It wasn’t my plan to have a national program or all these guys in the NBA or travel the world.”
In his first season with the Buccaneers in 1999, he fielded a team that included freshmen Luol Deng and Royal Ivey. Both went on to play in the 2003 McDonald’s All-American game en route to NBA careers. While they aren’t the only successful alumni, Mantegna credits them with helping build a program that draws the country’s top talent.
“They both ended up being NBA players, and more importantly great ambassadors for our school and our program,” Mantegna said. “We built it on that. The foundation was built on those guys and we got momentum going.”
Mantegna has 10 former players playing professional, either in the NBA or internationally, and dozens playing college basketball.
The opportunity at Blair came with good timing and a few connections. Before taking over the Bucs, Mantegna was an assistant coach at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. He was also working in admissions for the university and was assigned northwestern New Jersey — home to Blair Academy.
Lehigh was his fourth assistant college gig, but wanting to settle down with his future wife, Michelle, pushed him toward coaching high school.
“I had made some relationships and one thing led to another,” he said. “It’s been a wonderful family atmosphere. It’s been a blessing.”
Hometown start
Mantegna played at Northampton under his father, Joe Mantegna Sr., who was named to the New England Basketball Hall of Fame last week. Mantegna Sr. retired in 1990, but his Blue Devils’ jersey still hangs in the Northampton gym.
“I knew early on, as I did for myself, that this was probably what we wanted to do,” said the elder Mantegna, who was watching his son work the camp. “Our family has always been athletic and in athletics and kind of just gravitated to it. I knew he was going to be a coach.”
Mantegna Sr. has enjoyed watching his son turn the game they both love into a career. However, it’s up for debate who is the best coach.
“He’s got players all over the world, and I only coached in Northampton,” Mantegna Sr. said. “It’s a pleasure to see him doing what I did.”
“I don’t think I will ever be as good a coach as my father,” Mantegna Jr. said.
Mantegna Jr. went on to play at Ithaca, where he studied communications with an interest in sports broadcasting.
Basketball’s “always been a big part of my life,” Mantegna Jr. said. “The game harkens you back. It’s what I’ve always done. … The other main reason I gravitated toward coaching was that I saw firsthand the impact my father had on hundreds if not thousands of young people over a thirty-year period.”
Mantegna Sr. said his son’s high basketball IQ made him the perfect coach.
“He wasn’t the best player, but his basketball IQ was very, very high,” he said. “When you have a basketball IQ like he has, you just have to know he is going to pursue it further. I knew he was going to be a good coach.”
The younger coach said he doesn’t measure success by Division I scholarships, which 41 athletes have received during his tenure, or the program’s three state titles. To Mantegna Jr., one of the greatest parts of coaching is the ability to use a sport as a teaching tool to sharpening an athlete’s game and mind.
“Our team motto is ‘cause over self’ — to learn to be something bigger than yourself, is what I try to teach the kids at Blair,” Mantegna Jr. said. “Certainly, it’s also the biggest life lesson I’ve learned from the game.”
Giving back
Coaching also gives Mantegna Jr. a way to give back, which extends to his annual basketball camp for Northampton Park & Recreation.
“The biggest reason (I give back) is the bouncing ball has led me all around the world and given me so many of my closest friends and people that are important in my life,” he said. “I try to allow the other people the opportunities to use the ball to further their own lives.”
Mantegna Jr. travels the East Coast for clinics and speaking engagements. With Deng, who plays for the Miami Heat, the duo has put on clinics in England and Australia.
Earlier this month, they were in Melbourne, Australia, for Deng’s South Sudanese Australian National Classic. Through clinics and tournaments for South Sudanese immigrants, they helped spread peace with basketball. Deng’s home country is in a civil war.
“They are in midst of a major peace process in South Sudan, so we’re trying to spread that word of peace,” Mantegna Jr. said. “When kids of different tribal backgrounds are playing on the same team, they get to figure out that they are pretty similar people. They unite for one cause and it makes a huge difference.”
In August, the pair will take their coaching to Europe. It’s work like Deng’s that keeps Mantegna going. Whether it’s through clinics or charity programs, watching his former players spread some good off the court is equally rewarding as success on the court.
“What I’m more proud of is what (Deng’s) done with his charitable stuff,” Mantegna said. “I’m still hoping he wins an NBA championship, but I’m most proud of the good he’s done with his fame.”
That fame might not have come without hard work on the basketball court, which is all part of Mantegna’s process.
“We are very much about the process, we are very much about daily improvement (at Blair),” he said. “From that, guys get scholarships, from that we win championships, from that we build a program. … (Camp) is a process from growing these guys’ games, their understanding, the culture of basketball in town. … It’s all about process whether you are 8 years old or are a future pro.”
Before dismissing the roughly 35 kids participating in this week’s 23rd installment of camp, Mantegna gathered the group and asked for players to demonstrate one of the day’s teachings — layups.
“As they say, ‘coaching is coaching,’” he said. “To me, this is just as important coaching these guys, as it is coaching guys that go on to play on TV.”