A competitive coach had several role models

Steve DiPatri has followed the trails of success and continues to blaze new ones.

The longtime high school girls basketball coach drew inspiration from a family of coaches and has already established himself as one of the greats of South Jersey, despite his young age of 51.

DiPatri, who has settled in as coach at Wildwood Catholic Academy after a successful stretch at Sacred Heart High School, Vineland, now sits just four wins shy of his 500th career victory.

“It’s hard to believe I’ve coached this long and it’s gone so quick,” DiPatri said. “I’ve been really fortunate to have so many great players and I’ve developed so many great relationships with kids, adults and parents over the years.”

But it was the relationships before he coached that truly inspired him. DiPatri recalled watching his legendary uncle Art DiPatri steer the Paul VI High School boys basketball team to great heights in the 1980s as the Eagles of Haddonfield won a pair of state championships. Steve would hop in the car with his grandfather in antsy anticipation of the tip-off. 

“I remember going to Lakewood with my grandfather to see my uncle’s Paul VI teams play,” DiPatri said. “I’d watch him coach against Christian Brothers and I was thinking it would be something I’d really like to do. And I followed through.”

DiPatri completed his own high school career first, playing hoops and running track at Collingswood High School. He watched his female classmates with their own state championship at Collingswood and he kept an eye on his older brother Joe, who started coaching baseball at Paul VI, Penns Grove and Sterling.

DiPatri’s second cousin Tony Powers was coaching basketball at Gloucester Catholic and his son, Todd, now leads the Rams’ program. It’s easy to see that coaching flowed through DiPatri’s veins. 

“It’s great to have role models to look up to, to be examples of how to act and how to behave as a coach,” DiPatri said.

It inspired DiPatri to pursue coaching in his 20s — even if it led him down a different path than he anticipated. DiPatri assumed he’d coach boys basketball but remembers having to make a decision to get his foot in the door at the high school level.

“Working as a teacher at Bridgeton High School, the athletic director asked me if I would coach the girls JV team,” DiPatri said. “I kind of went kicking and screaming but I had played at Collingswood and our girls had won a state championship when I was there and I said, ‘hey, let’s give it a shot.’ There wasn’t an opening in boys. So I went for it and I loved it. Four years later I was asked to come to Sacred Heart.”

DiPatri coached 16 years at Sacred Heart, transforming the Lions into a powerhouse before they closed their doors in 2013. He guided the Vineland school’s girls program to a 352-89 record and a pair of state championships. As DiPatri became available, the phone started ringing. It didn’t take long for Wildwood Catholic to persuade DiPatri to take over its girls program.

“I had a lot of respect for Wildwood Catholic’s program and tradition as an opposing coach,” DiPatri said. “I also had a lot of respect for their former coach Fran St. John. It was a pretty natural transition, very similar to Sacred Heart. I thought we could do a lot of the same things we did at Sacred Heart at Wildwood Catholic.”

St. John had stepped down at Wildwood Catholic in 2011 but remains a fixture in the program as an assistant coach. St. John compiled 452 wins at Wildwood Catholic between the boys and girls programs. Quick match suggests there’s nearly 1,000 high school wins among the Crusaders’ coaching staff.

“We have such a unique relationship because I coached against him and we had respect for each other as opposing coaches,” DiPatri said. “Now we’ve become friends and I look at him as a mentor to coach alongside.”

The results at Wildwood Catholic are exactly what you might think. In just seven years, DiPatri has compiled a 144-47 record, as he continues to average more than 20 wins per season.

This year, however, the Crusaders will not win 20 games, as the team will only play a limited 15-game regular season due to state rules surrounding the pandemic. The Crusaders return a trio of seniors who cracked the starting lineup as freshmen three years ago in Alyia Gray-Rivera, Lauren McCallion and Marianna Papazoglou.

Papazoglou, who has committed to play Ivy League ball at the University of Pennsylvania next year, has more than 1,500 career points and was the only male or female player in school history to score 1,000 points during sophomore year. 

Twenty-win seasons and 2,000 point milestones are out of the question, unfortunately. But a 500th career win isn’t — and neither is a memorable basketball season.

“This year is especially special for me because we have three seniors who started as freshmen and that team was 15-11,” DiPatri said. “And here we are as seniors and they’ve had a great two-year run. With all that happened with COVID, we really want this team to go out in style. Hopefully, Lord-willing, we get to play our full complement of 15 games and go out the way we deserve.”