Father/son coaching tandem works for Sciarappas
Veteran Patriot coach has been joined on bench by his son
BY TIM MORRIS
Staff Writer

SCOTT PILLING staff Father and son John (l) and Johnny Sciarappa are enjoying coaching together as they lead a strong Freehold Township girls basketball program through a tough Shore Conference schedule.

There are now two John Sciarappas sitting on the bench at Freehold Township, but they think with one mind.

John Sciarappa, the veteran head coach of the Freehold Township girls basketball team, has been joined on the bench by his son, Johnny Sciarappa, this winter. And while his son, who just graduated from West Virginia University last spring, does bring some new perspectives to the program, he also knows what his father is thinking.

"The major difference between Johnny and my other assistants [Gene Tutzauer, Dave Warner and Steve Gibb], who were all absolutely fantastic, is that he's more outspoken," said John. "He's constantly thinking, he's always in the game and knows what I'm thinking."

That, according to the younger Sciarappa, is because he and his father go over what they are looking to do prior to each game. That enables him to be on the same wavelength as his father, understanding everything he wants to do.

"I don't totally wing it," he said of his suggestions to his father. "We go over these things before every game."

It has created a unique father-and-son team that has the Lady Patriot basketball team showing signs of a re-emergence.

Johnny Sciarappa can still remember the very first time he thought he might one day be sitting next to his father on the Patriot bench.

It was during a Patriot game with Jackson while he was still in high school. He was playing for Wall Township, but on this afternoon, his Crimson Knights didn't have a game scheduled and he was able to watch his father's team play.

Late in the fourth quarter of a victory, his father turned around with an inquiring look at him that said "is there anything else I should do?" Johnny reminded him that Cicy Sibony, who had started the game when Sciarappa was using a quick lineup, hadn't played since the opening quarter (the Pats went big and wore the Jaguars down). Immediately, Coach Sciarappa realized he hadn't used Sibony and called out her name, putting her back in the game.

Assistant coach Steve Gibb told Johnny that "you were made for this seat, I'm only keeping it warm."

Gibb's words proved to be prophetic.

John Sciarappa, who is in his 25th year as the Lady Pats' head coach, and is approaching 350 career wins (he currently has 345), knew quite early that his son would some day be involved in sports in some capacity. He can recall his son as early as 5, keeping track of the leading freshman scorers in the Shore and figuring out his father's win-loss record against opposing teams. By 9, he was at the scorer's table, keeping the scorebook, where he was far from a passive observer. He was taking in all the many angles of a game. He would do that until he started playing basketball at Wall High School. But whenever the opportunity was there, like that day in Jackson, he was in the gym watching the Pats.

Even when the younger Sciarappa was away at West Virginia, a Freehold Township game wasn't complete without John calling his son and going over the game with him. They would toss around strategies and although he was many miles away, Johnny was as familiar with the team as if he were there doing the scorebook. Basketball has always been fun for the younger Sciarappa, and not just as someone interested in stats. Besides playing and coaching, he's a referee and he helps run his father's summer camps.

It was the way that his son handled those camps that made the elder Sciarappa realize he could be a teacher one day.

"It's his personality, he gets along great with kids," he said. "I would let him run my camps. He loved working with them [kids]."

The elder Sciarappa said he would let his son take control at the camps so he could get experience that would relate teaching.

"Early in high school I knew that I could do it [teach]," Johnny pointed out. "I liked working with the kids at the camp. I was able to communicate to crowds, it gave me a forum."

Johnny said he came by his desire to teach naturally. After all, his mother, Lean Sciarappa, is a teacher as well at Bangs Avenue in Asbury Park.

"What an outlet, having two parents who are teachers," he said. "What don't they know?

"They've always been very supportive of anything I wanted to do," he added. "They never pushed me [to be a teacher]."

There were perks for the young Sciarappa growing up a coach's son. Every year when coaches would get together to select the Shore Coaches' All-Star Game rosters and all-division teams, it would be done at Sciarappa's house. Johnny got to listen to the coaches discussing strategies and drawing up plays on the table using salt and pepper shakers. That is like getting a Ph.D before college, hearing what some of the finest basketball minds in the state have to think about basketball.

"I consider myself a good listener," he pointed out.

His father agrees.

"He's always wanted to learn," John remarked. "He's always getting information. I've said he's a first-year coach with 15 years' experience."

Johnny is seeing firsthand just how involved running a program is, and that is more than X's and O's.

"You learn how to handle the tough losses and the big wins and how you practice the next day," he said. "It's a benefit I get from watching him.

"It's [coaching] still a joy for him and it makes him want to work harder," he added.

Johnny has learned that high school coaching translates to 13-hour days when the Patriots are playing.

What Johnny has brought to the Patriots this year, besides another voice, according to his father, is his ability to put players in their right places on the floor.

"From a player's perspective, he knows who should be in the game and at what spots they should be playing," he said.

Both father and son admit to having a special bond, a friendship that is more than father/son, and the reason it is all working out so well for them.

It wasn't etched in stone that Johnny was going to join his father this year. He applied for teaching positions at a couple of schools, with one of them to be a middle school head coach. When all the interviewing was finished, Johnny was hired as a physical education instructor at the Errickson School in Freehold Township, which just happens to be right next door to the high school. That opened the door to his joining his father this winter.

The elder Sciarappa said that no matter what unfolded, it was a "no-lose situation for me."

His son was going to teach and coach either way, with the best case being sitting on the bench that Gibb had been keeping warm for him.