The Catholic Standard and Times

Phil Martelli, the popular and successful coach of the St. Joseph’s University men’s basketball team does have his quirks.

He revealed some of them April 10 at a St. Martin of Tours School communion breakfast in which Archbishop Edward J. Adams, class of 1958, was inducted into the school’s new Hall of Fame.

Martelli said that on game days, he’s a bundle of nerves. He wonders: Has he fully prepared the team? Most of the time he doesn’t go in to his office, doesn’t shower or shave or eat, or even talk much, until the last minute before leaving home for the game.

But once Martelli is at the basketball arena, things change. Alone in the locker room, he calms down, recites a rosary. and says a prayer to St. Joseph. Finally, he takes a dog-eared old memorial card out of his pocket and recites the prayer to St. Michael printed on the back.

Does he really think God and his angels and saints are going to answer his prayers with a Hawks victory?

“God has more important things to do,” said Martelli, who has a humbler goal. He just looks at that old memorial card and whispers, “Tom, tonight I want to make you proud, help me.”

He tucks the card back into his pocket and goes out to do his best, which usually translates into a St. Joseph win. He’s been carrying that memorial card since the night of Tom Gallagher’s wake in 1997.

Tom Gallagher was his CYO basketball coach when he was a kid at St. Philomena in Lansdowne. He was just one of the many boys coached by Gallagher over a span of 32 years.

After St. Phil’s, Martelli went on to St. Joseph’s Prep in North Philadelphia, and each day for four years, Tom Gallagher drove him to school.

Martelli confesses to another quirk; he can’t stand peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But he was the oldest of seven, and that’s what he got every day.

“Peanut butter and jelly is good for you,” his mother assured him. About once a week, he’d leave the sandwiches home.

“Tom, I forgot my lunch, can you lend, me a couple of bucks?” He’d ask Gallagher.

Gallagher wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what was going on. But he’d give him the money anyway.

After St. Joseph’s Prep and Widener College, Martelli embarked on a coaching career, first in the Philadelphia Catholic League, then on the college level, eventually taking St. Joseph’s to new heights.

The 1997 team was one of the school’s best. It was on a game night that year — as the team played a televised game against the University of Massachusetts — that Martelli got the call. Tom Gallagher was in the hospital; his liver and kidneys were shutting down, and he probably wouldn’t make it.

The next day Martelli drove out to Delaware County Memorial Hospital, took the elevator to the fifth floor and found his old friend’s room. He peeked in the door and froze.

Gallagher was in such bad shape, Martelli couldn’t bring himself to go in. He literally ran back to the elevator.

He knew he had done the wrong thing, and for the next few days it tore him apart. Each day, he’d vow to go to the hospital then back out.

As expected, Gallagher died. It was on another game night — the night St. Joseph’s won the Big 10 championship. Maybe Gallagher was looking after St. Joseph’s.

Phil Martelli has been carrying Tom Gallagher’s memorial card ever since, and doing his best to make him proud.

A member of St. Mary Magdalen Parish in Media, Martelli is easily one of the most sought-after speakers in the area.

The message of his story is clear. “I started out with good intentions, but I failed. I made a mistake,” Martelli said. “I didn’t have the courage to go in and do the most simple and beautiful thing — say ‘thank you.’

“Wherever I go, my intent, my purpose, is one. That is to thank everybody who allowed me to develop into who I am and allowed me to develop into doing what I do. I fully recognize that where I am today is due to all these people who touched me without knowing it.”

Looking out over his audience, Martelli said, “I beg and encourage you to find the person in your life you forgot to thank, whether in your family, whether in your community, whether in your business.”

Delivering his message at St. Martin’s was something of a homecoming for Martelli. After his graduation from Widener College in 1976, his dream was to be a head basketball coach in the Philadelphia Catholic League. For starters he took a position as assistant coach at Cardinal O’Hara High school. That didn’t pay the bills, so he took a day job as a seventh-grade teacher at St. Martin of Tours. He stayed at St. Martin’s for two years before finding a full-time coaching position.

Eventually he worked his way up to college ball. At St. Joseph’s since 1996, he’s taken the team to four NCAA tourneys and two NIT appearances. This year, they got as far as the NIT championship game.

Last year’s United States Basketball Writer’s “Coach of the Year,” Martelli began his career in Philadelphia and that’s where he intends to stay.

And he’s never forgotten St. Martin’s, a school which has seen a dramatic enrollment drop since his faculty days.

“St. Martin’s was a wonderful growing experience for me,” Martelli told his audience. “Some really great kids went through this school, and we’ve got to keep it going.”

The communion breakfast at which he spoke was St. Martin’s first alumni Mass and breakfast. A second highlight was the induction of Archbioshop Adams into the school’s new Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, as the Vatican’s papal nuncio to Zimbabwe in Eastern Africa, Archbishop Adams could not attend, but he did send a letter.

“St. Martin’s was not only an institution for educating children, but a school of faith — a Catholic school committed to filling its students with virtue as well as knowledge,” said the Archbishop in a letter read by St. Martin’s pastor. Msgr. Francis W. Beach.

Archbishop Adams expressed his gratitude to the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who staffed the school in his day, and urged his fellow graduates to help present-day students, by supporting families who lack the financial means to send their children to St. Martin’s.

Phil Martelli would agree. It is a good way, after all, of saying, “Thank you.”

Lou Baldwin is a member of St. Leo Parish and a freelance writer.