Son, dad a study in contrast
In his first season as a head coach, Charlie led the Colonials to a 19-10 record (14-4 in conference), a Northeast Conference regular season championship and the No. 1 seed in the NEC tournament, which begins Sunday at the Sewall Center with a game against Fairleigh Dickinson.
In many ways, Charlie is building on the successful legacy of his dad. But he hasn’t been afraid to inject his own style into the program, the biggest change being a strong attention to even the most minor details.
“Coach Sal is regulated by his heart. Coach Charlie is regulated by his brain,” Robert Morris athletic director Craig Coleman said.
Charlie said he thrives in a routine, organized environment, and in his first year, he has been committed to developing a program culture that reflects his personality.
The first hint in how their styles differ lies in how they organized their offices. Sal’s office was simply that — an office. He had a desk, some chairs, a collection of trophies and stacks of papers.
Charlie has turned the office into a meeting place. He has a couch, a TV and a small table on the back wall with two chairs, what he believes is a more appropriate place to have a conversation with a player or a visitor instead of being separated by a wide desk.
“He thought it was important to meet people face-toface and be closer,” Sal said. “That’s why he wanted that little table. There’s a psychology behind that table. Most of the things he does, there’s some type of psychology behind it.”
Sal doesn’t fly, so Charlie was the one who often manned overseas recruiting trips as an assistant head coach. Now, the team travels by airplane during the season, whenever it is viable.
Sal would often change his team’s defensive schemes. Charlie is a firm believer in man-to-man defense. He has changed the team’s practice schedule, and the rules at practice. Players aren’t allowed to use profanity, and hats are banned.
During team dinners, no one on the team is allowed to eat until everyone has been served. If the restaurant gets someone’s order wrong, the team waits until the order has been made right.
“Coach was involved even as the associate head coach,” said senior guard Anna Niki Stamolamprou, whom Charlie recruited out of Greece. “He's done a great job this year, you can see from our results. He's been really good. He's not only about winning, he's trying to push us to be the best we can be off the court. He sets high standards for us and himself and he holds us accountable to those standards.”
One of Charlie’s most notable changes is the invention of the “cooler” — a role designated to an assistant coach before every game. When a player is subbed out of the game, it is the cooler’s job to review that player’s performance, go over any bad plays and settle the player down.
“He’s extremely, unbelievably detailed,” Sal said.
The former coach remembers the arguments he and Charlie would have when they coached Robert Morris together. Being father and son, they weren’t afraid to be honest with each other when they had disagreements. Even then, Charlie would care more about details that Sal considered minor.
“I would say, ‘That’s not that important,’ and he would say, ‘Yes, it is that important!’ ” Sal said.
“If I thought that he was wrong, and he thought I was wrong, we would blow it up. We might spend an hour and a half battling how to defend a ball screen.”
Unlike Sal, Charlie was born into the coaching world. Before he moved into the head office, he had nearly two decades of experience on the sideline, and an even longer span of observing his father. In that time, he developed his coaching philosophy — one based not only on routine, but player empowerment.
“For me to be this coach, I have to be this person,” Charlie said. “And I have to live my life the way that I teach my team. That's a life commitment. There's no way you're going to be able to live your life one way and coach a different way. You live your life the way you coach your team.”
In Charlie, Coleman saw a person who was a good recruiter, had an even disposition and a close attention to detail. As Charlie’s responsibilities as an assistant coach grew, Coleman knew it would be a natural transition when he handed Charlie the keys to the program.
“Coach Sal, if you watch him during a game, he’s emotional, demonstrative and yelling and pleading and it’s quite a performance. Whereas coach Charlie is much more even tempered, he’s always thinking calmly, rational,” Coleman said. “They have a very different style.”
“For me to be this coach, I have to be this person. And I have to live my life the way that I teach my team. That's a life commitment.” Charlie Buscaglia