Defiant and determined, Martelli looks to future

MIDDLETOWN » If ever a scene, at least one excluding the Palestra, could illustrate how uniquely parochial Philadelphia basketball is, it could’ve been found Thursday morning in a living room in Upper Providence.

Fifteen media members crowded into the home of Phil Martelli, summoned by a personal press release, from his personal email, with his phone number and address. As cameras recorded and shutters clicked, between the Impressionist-style art and porcelain figurines adorning the room, Martelli explained for a half-hour his side of how his tenure at Saint Joseph’s came to an abrupt end this week.

“I pledged to Saint Joseph’s University to be a partner,” Martelli said, with wife Judy by his side. “I felt that I had partnerships there. And my hope and prayer is that I was viewed as a

good partner, that I gave more than I took, and that the same is true of the families of the players.”

The tableau echoed the dissonance in Martelli’s dismissal after 24 seasons as head coach at Saint Joe’s, between the message he endorsed in his program as opposed to the results-oriented aims upon which his parting was based. As Martelli put it, the only way it could’ve been odder Thursday would be if the sun had been shining and he had popped off his shirt to do sit-ups on his front lawn a la Terrell Owens in 2005.

“That’s my first attempt at humor in a couple of days,” Martelli said.

He expressed gratitude for “thousands of texts and calls and emails,” hearing from players all the way back to his days coaching Bishop Kenrick High in the late 1970s, a temporary salve for the pain and numbness. He said the news “knocked the wind out of me,” with Martelli preparing for an end-ofseason evaluation Monday with notes on how to improve on a 14-19 season, the Hawks’ third straight non-winning season after having claimed two of the previous three Atlantic 10 tournament titles.

Instead of changes for next season, Martelli was informed by athletic director Jill Bodensteiner that the university was going in a different direction. Martelli, 64, was given a chance to resign but declined, citing the integrity that he’d tried to build his program on, a foundation that he thought was enough to warrant more time at the helm.

“This culture, this way of doing things, was consistent,” Martelli said. “What wasn’t consistent was the results. I’ve never cried poor at Saint Joe’s, and I’m not crying poor. I’m not ‘woe is me’ or ‘woe is us,’ and no one here has ever heard me be, ‘woe is me, woe is us.’ But I just know at our level, there’s no such thing as next man up. And the difference between magic and disappointment is razor-thin.

“There is no day that I went out of this house and went to 54th and City Line where I thought about disappointment. There was no day where, well, I’ll cut short my work. There was no day where I compromised my culture and expectations.”

Injuries played a part the last three seasons, with the Hawks down to eight available scholarship players at one point this year. All-League picks Shavar Newkirk and James Demery played just two games together in 2016-17 between their injuries. AllAtlantic 10 picks Lamarr Kimble and Charlie Brown, this year’s leading scorer in the conference, missed all but one game of the 201718 season. Kimble was limited to 23 games this season, with Pierfrancesco Oliva playing 13.

“If these were the cards I was dealt,” Martelli said, “I was going to try to beat four of a kind with sevenhigh.”

Martelli espoused the aspects of his program he was most proud of, something that the university’s terse three-paragraph statement overlooked (and for which it has been roundly criticized). Martelli valued not just wins and losses but repaying parents who entrusted him with their children by returning to them fully formed young men. He stressed communication (“with kings and with paupers”), being a teammate on and off the court, and consistent improvement day by day. Among his most painful realizations was that his streak of attending 33 consecutive Saint Joe’s commencements will end.

The pain was too raw Tuesday for him to watch the final game in his close friend Fran Dunphy’s coaching career, Temple losing in the First Four to Belmont. He’s planning to abstain from the NCAA tournament until Friday night, when VCU, for which his son Jimmy is the director of basketball operations, tips off.

He understood Bodensteiner’s word choice in the firing announcement, of the basketball program as, “an important strategic asset for the university.” He thought he’d represented it as such.

“I knew that basketball was the front door. And at Saint Joseph’s, it was the front door to the castle,” he said. “It wasn’t the front door to somebody’s home, it was the front door to the castle. And how we comported ourselves, what we did in the community, what we did academically, winning and losing and how we played, I knew that it was very, very, very important to Saint Joseph’s University that the basketball program be a shining example of excellence.

“Again, I don’t drop my head and apologize. That’s what we strove to do each and every day.”

Despite the sadness, Martelli also struck a defiant tone. He doubled down on Wednesday’s personal statement that he’s not ready to retire from coaching. And he’s choosing to value the positive moments from more than three decades on Hawk Hill.

“Saint Joseph’s will always be a part of me,” he said, the sentence catching in his throat. “This did not leave me with a scar. I choose only to take the great memories. I will coach again. And I’ll be juiced, I’ll be fired up, and I can’t wait to be on a floor with a bunch of kids and be able to turn to them and say, ‘go cut down that championship net. Go cut it down. You earned it.’

“I’m really appreciative. And it’s a setback. But we’re not done. The Martelli family is not done and will not be tattooed by what has taken place this week.”