Phil Martelli

Basketball

St. Joes's Legendary basketball coach

Phil Martelli spent half his life at Saint Joseph's University.

His father, also Phil, spent nearly as much time as his son in Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse/Hagan Arena. When Coach Phil was told he was going to be in the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2022, the first person he thought of was his father, who attended just about every practice and every game during his son's 24-year run as St. Joe's head coach.

"My father was just a Philadelphia guy," Martelli said. "To think that his son would go in with those names…he would be over the top on this one."

Near the end of his life, Mr. Martelli showed off his ticket from the Eagles- Packers 1960 championship game at Franklin Field. Yes, he was a Philadelphia guy.

"My father would have connected with every person at that (HOF) celebration," Martelli said.

The elder Martelli (aka "Pops") passed away in February 2019, a few weeks before his son coached his final game for the Hawks. But he saw almost all of Martelli's schoolrecord 444 wins, the Sweet 16 in 199 7, the perfect 27-0 regular season and No. 1 ranking in 2003-‘04, the 2004 Elite 8, the three Atlantic 10 Tournament titles, the two NIT championship games, and the countless relationships developed with hundreds of players who came to St. Joe's searching for guidance and left fulfilled.

Jameer Nelson was Martelli's best player. In fact, after winning a state championship at Chester High School and before his 14-year NBA career, Nelson was the nation's best player in 2003- ‘04. "When I think of Phil, I think ‘icon' for multiple reasons," Nelson once said. "His success, how intelligent he is as a human being and as a coach, but also his makeup. You look at Phil, you see the bald head and it's him. Think about it, twenty years ago, Phil Martelli could have had a logo. It just would have been a face, with the bald head and the hair. It would have been recognizable all around the country."

At no time was Martelli's unique skill as a coach more required or evident than after his team's heartbreaking loss to Oklahoma State, seconds away from the 2003-'04 Final Four. "When I speak, I always speak from the heart," Martelli said to his team an hour after the game in his hotel suite. "I can't ever repay all of you. If there was ever a time when I hurt somebody, I apologize. It was never my intention."

If 2003-'04 was Martelli's best team, his best coaching job was the very next season. Nelson and Delonte West had moved on to the NBA, and super sixth man Tyrone Barley had used up his eligibility, and the team was in trouble.

"He kicked us out of our locker room after a west coast trip," Pat Carroll remembered. They lost two more after that and fell to 3-6. Martelli and his staff reconstructed the Hawks' entire offense on the fly, tossing out what had been so successful with the speed of Nelson, West and Barley and framed everything around Carroll's unique shooting talent and ability to use multiple screens to get open.

"Coach Martelli and his staff made the adjustments that were the perfect fit for the personnel we had," Carroll said.

That team went 21-6 after the changes, won the A-10 regular season title and played in the A-10 and NIT title games. Carroll made 135 threes, scored 640 points, and was named A-10 and Big 5 Player of the Year.

Martelli was an assistant at St. Joe's for 10 years before he got the head job. After interviewing and not getting head jobs, he wondered if he would ever get his chance. When he did, it was at his dream school.

And he never forgot the journey.

"Really, the memories and the relationships that I have through this game going back to St. Joe's Prep or Widener or Bishop Kenrick or as an assistant at St. Joe's and then having that opportunity I had a t Saint Joseph's," Martelli said.

Like his father, Martelli is a Philadelphia guy. He figures he is the only person in this Hall who walked to the airport in 1964 to see the Phillies come back from Cincinnati, snuck into Game 5 of the Sixers-Warriors NBA Finals in 1968, and was at the last game at Connie Mack Stadium in 1970.

Now, Phil Martelli, Philadelphia guy and son of a Philadelphia guy, is a member of the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.

By Dick Jerardi