Rollie Massimino’s advice to Stony Brook: Cherish the moment

DES MOINES, Iowa — No matter how daunting the challenge might seem for Stony Brook against Kentucky on Thursday night, the coach and players should embrace it for the great experience it will be. That advice comes from a man who knows about overcoming daunting challenges, and about Stony Brook. It comes from Rollie Massimino, who launched a legendary college coaching career at the school.

“Just enjoy it. That’s what it’s all about,” Massimino said Wednesday from Denver, where he is scheduled for a speaking engagement in conjunction with the NCAA Tournament games there. “This is something they are going to remember for the rest of their lives.”

Massimino never will forget the years 1969-71, which he spent at Stony Brook and propelled him to a coaching stint highlighted by one of the biggest upsets in NCAA championship history: Villanova over Georgetown in 1985. He learned lessons in his two seasons at the head of the bench in Pritchard Gymnasium, where the Seawolves played until two years ago while Stony Brook Arena was being refurbished.

“I learned that kids are different, but they all want to win. You just have to give them a structure,” he said, having taken a phone call to talk about Stony Brook despite suffering from food poisoning.

He had been a high school coach in New Jersey, looking to move up, and applied to coach Harvard. “I didn’t get the Harvard job,” he said, adding that a friend at Columbia told him about the opening on Long Island. “I had never heard of Stony Brook.”

But he took over the Division III team, which had been coached by Herb Brown, Larry’s brother and a teammate of Massimino’s at Vermont. “We went to the NCAA Tournament,” he said.

Those were the days of Mike Kerr, Art Baclawski and Bill Myrick. Things changed the day Massimino heard that his friend Chuck Daly was moving from Boston College to the University of Pennsylvania and called to offer congratulations. “He said, ‘Meet me at Newark Airport tomorrow morning.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He said, ‘Just meet me,’ ” Massimino said. It turned out Daly offered him a job as one of his assistants at Penn. “I took a $6,000 pay cut, with a wife and five kids.”

From there, it was only a short hop to Villanova.

He does know that this is Stony Brook’s first time in the Big Dance for Division I schools. But he did not get to watch the game that brought them here, the victory over his alma mater on Saturday. He was on the road with his team. Yes, Massimino is still coaching. At 81 and having withstood cancer surgery and a collapsed lung, he still is coaching. He led Keiser University of West Palm Beach, Florida, to a 30-5 record this season in NAIA play.

So much for the retirement that he had planned more than 10 years ago. He was sought as a basketball adviser for what was then known as Northwood University by athletic director Rick Smoliak, whom Massimino knew as the baseball coach at Stony Brook. Almost instantly, the adviser role became coach in 2007. He has stayed with it ever since. When he does step down, he wants the college to replace him with his assistant Ken Gabelman, a former Hauppauge coach.

On Thursday night, he will be pulling for Stony Brook.

“I recruited the coach when he was a player. A very nice young man,” he said of Steve Pikiell. As for Pikiell’s team, and a program Massimino helped build, he said, “I think it’s wonderful.”