Stories from the hardcourt
Montelli book reveals tales of basketball and friendship
The wins we know. There are a Connecticut- and New Englandrecord 878 of them. The state championships we know, too. There are 11 to go with 27 McDonald’s All Americans.
Vito Montelli’s accomplishments at St. Joseph High School need plastic crates full of scrapbooks, newspaper clippings and meticulous notes to document them all. Fortunately, the 88-year-old coaching legend has kept them. Fortunately, too, Montelli has shared them along with hours of interviews with Chris Elsberry for his book, “God, Family & Basketball.”
“There was always something about Vito that is deeply human,” Seth Davis said. “People went, ‘Well, he’s gruff, he’s intimidating.’ I thought he was a big softy. Soft eyes. Warm smile. Loving heart. I love that his players wore kneepads. I always say all you need to know about Vito Montelli as a coach was that his players wore kneepads.’
There is much to enjoy in Elsberry’s biography of a man many recognize as the greatest coach in Connecticut high school history. One of the most striking is the way Vito Montelli has collected close friends with the same care as his memories. Only he didn’t put them in plastic crates. He didn’t file them away in scrapbooks.
Montelli’s friends are for life and remain in the present. The help he has given his players over the years is well-known and treasured in the
St. Joseph community. His more famous friends, like Kentucky coach John Calipari and Seth Davis, from CBS and The Athletic, have treasured their relationship for decades.
“I respect him as much as any coach I’ve ever been around,” Calipari told Elsberry for the book.
Davis met Montelli during the 1992-93 season when he was assigned by the New Haven Register to do a piece on Desmond Artis, one of the top players in the area. Afterward, Montelli called Davis to say he did a really nice job.
St. Joseph teams were always terrific, so Davis dealt with Montelli a lot of over 2 1⁄ years before
2 he went on to Sports Illustrated and national acclaim.
In 1990, Montelli had coached the East team in the McDonald’s All American game in Indianapolis. In 1993, Bob Geoghan, another longtime friend, asked him to coach the USA All-Stars against the D.C.-area All-Stars in the Capital Classic, an annual high school showcase that draws some of the biggest names in the country. Davis, who grew up in Maryland and attended Duke, knew it well. It’s where he first met Coach K.
Montelli, who had Marcus Camby on his Capital Classic team, extended invitations to the Connecticut Post, Register and Hartford Courant. Only the Register went. He gave Davis all-access, the practices, everything. Montelli’s son, Tommy, who had just finished playing at Bentley, and Chris Watts, then Montelli’s assistant who played at Providence, went, too. Both played for Montelli at St. Joe’s.
“Chris, Seth and I had quite a time in D.C. for a few nights,” Tommy said. “Seth’s relationship with my dad and me just prospered from there.”
“I basically put Seth on the staff,” Vito said.
“I literally sat on the bench,” Davis said.
When he lived in Ridgefield, Davis brought his kids to St. Joe’s games.
“Vito always stayed in touch,” Davis said. “He always called. If I had a little quarter-page article in Sports Illustrated with the initials S.D., he’d call and say he saw it. He didn’t know I was doing stuff for CBS. First time I popped on the air he almost fell out of his chair and called, ‘Oh, my God!’ I love getting messages from him. He put the voice in voicemail.”
Davis breaks into an impersonation of Montelli’s deep, deep voice: “Hello, Seth. This is Coach …”
“Even with the age difference between us,” Davis said, “I truly consider Vito one of my best friends. The last year or two, Tommy drove him into CBS. He sat there when we did our halftimes. He hung out with Clark Kellogg. Clark fussed over him. It was great.”
Davis wrote the foreword for “God, Family & Basketball.”
Montelli, a three-time national high school coach of the year, met Calipari when Tommy attended the Five-Star Basketball Camp in Pittsburgh in 1980s. Calipari, then in his mid-20s, was an instructor at one of the camp’s stations. He was just getting started as an assistant at Kansas and Pittsburgh.
“When my father came to pick me up, I said, ‘Dad you got to meet this guy. He’s terrific,’ ” Tommy said. “Cal was a young unknown, really. I introduced them. My father ended up speaking at a couple of clinics that Cal went and watched. He was trying to learn everything he could.
“Cal got his big break as coach at UMass. He went up the ranks (Memphis, NBA, Kentucky) pretty quickly, but he never forgot the old man.”
Calipari spoke at Montelli’s postseason banquets while he was at UMass and Memphis. A halfdozen times. The one that rings the loudest and truest was 2012. Montelli won his final state championship on March 17, a Class LL victory over Hillhouse. Calipari coached Anthony Davis and Kentucky to the NCAA title over Kansas a few weeks later.
“John won the championship in April and here he is speaking at an Italian restaurant (Vazzano’s in Stratford) in May,” said Davis, who was there that night. “He did it because he loves Vito.”
In August that year, after 50 years of coaching, at age 80, Montelli retired. Friendships didn’t end.
Over the years, Tommy and Vito have gone out to Kentucky to watch games.
“He treats us like family,” Tommy said. “My dad and Cal go out to dinner and go to church. That’s what they like to do.”
Calipari has been asking about coming out again, but it’s a little tougher with Vito’s age and impossible this season with COVID. They’re going to try to go next season.
They talk on the phone. “My dad gives little pieces of advice,” Tommy said. “Cal is sweet, gracious.”
“I feel for John now, because (Kentucky) isn’t doing as well as he was hoping this year. I leave him messages.
“He and Seth have been terrific friends. And (talent evaluator) Tom Konchalski. You can count your friends when you’re having trouble. You count your real friends when you need a friend.”
He counts Herb Sendek as one, too. When he was recruiting Watts to Providence, Rick Pitino invited Montelli to sit in the stands to observe practices. Sendek, remembered for coaching NC State to an NCAA Tournament upset of UConn in 2005, was a member of Pitino’s staff at the time along. He was of particular help.
“I was a fanatic, always looking to learn,” Montelli said. “I owe a lot to Herb. A lot of material I got was from watching them practice, sitting there and taking notes.”
How much of a learning fanatic? In the Nineties, Montelli arranged a visit to Ohio to spend parts of a day with Bob Huggins when he was at Cincinnati; Pete Gillen, then with Xavier; and Sendek, then at Miami (Ohio).
Montelli said he would have loved to see Doremus Bennerman, a star for him at St. Joseph, play for Calipari at UMass.
“Doremus went up there, spent three days, came back and said, ‘No, Coach,’ ” Montelli said. “John was really young at the time. I said, ‘What happened?’ Doremus said nobody paid any attention to him.”
That spring, Siena recruited him much harder. Bennerman ended up going there, scoring more than 2,000 career points and was the 1994 MAAC Player of the Year.
“Later, John said to me that he went to the NCAA Tournament, had a nice run and, ‘The only thing that held me back was not having a point guard.’ I said, ‘John, you had Doremus Bennerman and nobody paid any attention to him.’ He said, ‘You know, I think you’re right.’ ”
Davis laughs about such exchanges.
“Cal says, ‘I love that man. He’s a great coach. Vito’s a special man. He also always overrates his players.’ ”
Montelli tells the story of how Calipari invited him and his friends and family out to Kentucky. A half-dozen of them headed out to Lexington.
They went to a game. They watched practice. Vito went up to Calipari’s large office where they spent quite a while talking. Within looking back, Calipari grabbed the door handle of big cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of Kentucky’s finest bourbon.
“That’s from me to you,” Calipari said.
A year later, Vito Montelli and his wife opened it.
“God, Family & Basketball,” published by Hilltop30 Publishing Group, is $20 and available through email Godfamilyandbasketball@gmail.com or on Amazon.