PITTSBURGH (AP) — When Philip Martelli Jr. and Jimmy Martelli told their father they wanted to go into coaching, Phil Sr. gave his blessing, albeit with one very important caveat.
“I wasn’t going to pick up the phone,” said the elder Martelli, who won 444 games and made the NCAA Tournament seven times during a massively successful 24-year run at Saint Joseph's in Philadelphia. “They knew they weren’t getting a job just because of their name. Or they wouldn’t
last if that’s the way they got it.”
So Philip and Jimmy essentially wiped “Martelli” off their resumes. The two brothers — Philip, 44, is 15 months older — each carved their own distinct paths.
For Philip, it meant starting out as an assistant at Central Connecticut State, going without a paycheck for his first year while sleeping on a couch on an enclosed porch. Asked how Philip paid the bills, Phil Sr. shrugged while his wife Judy gave a knowing look out of the corner of her eye and nodded silently in her husband's direction.
Jimmy initially wanted to be a college administrator, wary of the stress coaching provides after growing up watching his father prowl the sideline while trying to make a mid-major program in the western Philly suburbs nationally relevant. Yet when a job as an assistant popped up at Dickinson, his alma mater, right after he graduated, the lure of joining the family business proved too strong to ignore.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and all three Martellis reunited amid the confetti-strewn floor at PPG Paints Arena on Sunday afternoon after Philip, now the head coach at Virginia Commonwealth University — with Jimmy sitting two chairs to his right on the bench as his top assistant — led the Rams to a second straight Atlantic 10 Tournament title and the school's 21st NCAA Tournament appearance.
A few hours later, VCU (27-7) received an 11th seed in the South Region and will face sixth-seeded North Carolina (24-8) in Greenville, South Carolina, on Thursday.
“I mean, it is super special,” Philip said. “We haven’t been in the same place in like 20 years. You know, we’ve been on our coaching journeys.”
Just the way dad wanted it.
“None of this is expected," Phil Sr. said. "It’s all earned. Both of them have worked really hard, and this team, they’ve earned this.”
The two boys who grew up competing against each other in everything from Nintendo to ping pong to intense games of one-on-one — Philip joked nobody ever really won because every showdown ended up in a fight — wound their way to a moment they long talked about but thought never might become reality.
“I’d say it’s a dream come true,” Jimmy said. “But I don’t think I could have dreamt about this."
Things changed a year ago after Philip guided Bryant University to an American East championship and the program's second-ever appearance in March Madness. VCU athletic director Ed McLaughlin had a job opening after Ryan Odom left for Virginia. McLaughlin had a feeling the relentless young man he met when both were at Niagara in the late 2000s was ready to make what looked like a bit of a leap on paper — Philip had been at Bryant all of two years — but felt more like a natural step.
“He's just an unbelievable connector of people,” McLaughlin said. “You watch him with the team, you watch how the team plays together. I just knew from the time he was 24 years old, he’d be a really good head coach.”
Philip couldn't say yes fast enough. And when it came to filling out his staff, his brother was his first call, one he made not out of charity or nepotism, but common sense. Jimmy spent six years at VCU as the director of basketball operations from 2017-23 before joining Mike Rhoades' staff at Penn State.
Taking the reins of a high mid-major program with a pedigree of success and a long track record of serving as a launching pad for young coaches on their way up the ladder, Philip knew he needed someone who knew the game, knew the community and wouldn't hesitate to put him in check when necessary.
While they share the same last name, the same love of the game and the same hair style — both Martellis, like their father, have seen their last haircut that required scissors — that doesn't mean they share the same philosophy all the time. And that's kind of the point.
“He’s got his different views,” Philip said. “But he’s able to kind of sit me down and give me the truth when some other people might be more hesitant. I know he's always got my best interest at heart."
Their distinct approaches were on full display during a decisive, if occasionally trying, victory over Dayton in the A-10 title game.
Philip, maybe subconsciously echoing his father's approach, stood for all 40 minutes, usually with his arms folded in an effort to keep the nerves at bay. Jimmy would sit and watch, sometimes placing his hands on his head when an official's call went Dayton's way, sometimes dropping onto the floor to make a point, sometimes sprinting onto the court during a timeout to fist bump a player or offer encouragement.
They are, as VCU forward Barry Evans, who followed Philip from Bryant to the Rams, “evil twins.”
“Coach Telli is the good one, and Coach Jimmy is the evil one,” Evans said with a laugh.
Even if these days it's a little harder to tell one from the other. Both Martellis admit Jimmy was always the more confident one when they were kids, even if that confidence sometimes came with an edge that can be specific to younger brothers.
Simply put, Jimmy could be a jerk growing up, Philip said.
“At some points, I feel like it’s changed,” he said.
Jimmy put it a little more charitably.
“There’s a confidence to him, which honestly as a kid, I don’t know if he had,” Jimmy said. “Like, a lot of people probably say I was more arrogant or whatever. But he's more calm, cool and collected (now)."
That coolness was on display in the second half against the Flyers, when a comfortable 17-point lead had been trimmed to single digits. There was no panic. There was no change in approach. The Rams stuck to what they do best, even if their typically up-tempo offense — VCU is averaging more than 80 points a game for the first time since 1976 — wasn't clicking as usual.
In the end, it didn't matter. The Rams gritted it out, made their free throws late, and cut down the nets.
Amid the giddy chaos afterward, the Martelli family quietly gathered for a celebratory photo that felt like a long time coming and yet inevitable all the same.
“We got to experience this through my dad,” Jimmy said. “And that’s a different kind of joy to watch your father do something. But to do it with somebody that knows you better than anyone, to do it alongside (Philip) and to be on the journey (together) is just super special.”
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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
