Former Westfield State Owl Joe Dicruttalo during his tenure as an Assistant at Dean College (Submitted Photo)
FRANKLIN – Though it has been four years since he roamed Western Avenue as a student athlete at Westfield State, Joe Dicruttalo hasn’t forgotten his time on the basketball court for the birds in blue.
After all, it was there he realized what he wanted in life.
“I would sit in the Woodward Center and think of my coaches and think, ‘why can’t I make a living doing this?'” said the former Owls forward, who graduated from Westfield State with a degree in Elementary Education in 2010. “When you’re a coach in any sport, you can be such an influence in the lives of your players.”
The last few winters have seen the Franklin resident transition from a multi-dimensional forward on the Woodward Center hardwood, to a presence on the sideline, having coached at multiple levels in only four short years, with assistant coaching stints at Dean College, a junior college in his hometown, and St. Mark’s, a prep school in Southborough with a storied basketball tradition which has seen several alumni reach the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division One with the likes of Arizona, Duke, and Florida.
And it is within these different levels of competition where Dicruttalo finds himself these days, working in the youth ranks and player development, and biding his time in anticipation of an opportunity to pursue his own Division One sideline-and-clipboard dreams.
Dicruttalo currently spends his summers serving as the head coach for an under-16 team of the New England Playaz, an elite travel basketball organization which competes in Amateur Athletic Union tournaments all over the country, and whose coaches include John Carroll, a former Boston Celtics assistant.
Dicruttalo has become a fixture on the youth basketball circuit (Submitted Photo)
Sponsored by German sportswear giant Adidas, Dicruttalo has taken the opportunity to coach some of Massachusetts’ top amateur prospects and face some of the brightest amateur stars in these tournaments, many who have gone on to accept full rides to elite NCAA programs.
“Traveling all over the country – Indianapolis, Las Vegas – during the July live recruiting period. It’s my favorite time of year,” Dicruttalo said. “This summer, we played against the Russian U16 National Team in Springfield, which was a great experience for the players.”
However, Dicruttalo, who was born in Gloversville, New York and moved to Franklin at age 10, is a man with numerous plates in the air, as he has also coached at camps for the Hoop Group, worked with iSlide, a Norwood-based footwear company, and served as the basketball operations manager for Shooting Touch, Inc., an organization that provides inner city and suburban youth in greater Boston, as well as internationally, with opportunities for development, both on and off the court.
He is currently seeking to build and establish middle and high school summer instructional camps, to be called the “Playaz Academy”, in eastern Massachusetts.
“I want to put on clinics that are curriculum-based, three-day camps,” he said. “We can teach kids the fundamentals. We want to hold coaching conferences and reach out to coaches, and also give parents a blueprint for how to coach youth basketball.”
“Every other sport is doing this, and has been doing this,” he added. “Baseball has Little League, football has Pop Warner. Basketball needs more of this instruction.”
Fundamentals and instruction go hand in hand for Dicruttalo, but he also stresses the intangibles and mental toughness that made him a valuable contributor at WSU to his players.
“He was a hard worker who played on some good teams,” said Westfield State Athletic Director Richard Lenfest. “He was someone who had skill, he could shoot the ball and pass, but he also could mix it up in the paint. He made the adjustments to college athletics well, and used the opportunities he had to contribute.”
Dicruttalo (Left, in white) lead the Owls in assists and steals as a senior in 2009 (Submitted Photo)
Dicruttalo has worked at numerous camps and clinics since graduating from WSU in 2009 (Submitted Photo)
Lenfest also mentioned Dicruttalo’s penchant for hitting the deck for loose balls, describing him as a “hard-nosed kid” who lea the Owls in assists and steals as a senior.
Dean Scarafoni, who Dicruttalo coached under at Dean, was impressed by his work with the team’s younger players and with children in the community.
“He ran clinics for local kids in Franklin, he was always available to our guys.” Scarafoni said. “One-on-one instruction, he worked with them before class, after class. He’s kind of old school.”
When asked of whether his former assistant has a shot at the big time as a D1 coach, Scarafoni has no doubts.
“He does because he loves it; he’s a hustler,” Scarafoni said. “He’s working with several entities right now – the Playaz, St. Mark’s – and that’s the attitude you have to have. He has such great knowledge and enthusiasm, he can work his way up.”
And while many former players with coaching dreams may aspire to succeed Roy Williams at North Carolina or Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, Dicruttalo sees himself in more of the Brad Stevens mold, the 37-year old Indianan who coached Butler University to two NCAA title game appearances before signing a six-year contract to coach the Boston Celtics this summer.
“I’m aiming for Division One,” Dicruttalo said confidently. “But I don’t want a Kentucky. I want a Butler. I want to take a program like James Madison and make them a powerhouse. I want to coach a school and make my career there, doing what I love forever. I’m a teacher by trade, but I want basketball to be my subject.”
And with an attitude like that, Joe Dicruttalo is well on his way to calling plays and full court presses at college basketball’s highest level, a dream which began on the hardwood at Westfield State University.
