I have never been to Los Angeles. I have no desire to visit. I think that has something to do with having grown up rooting for the Boston Celtics. I was 10 years old in 1986, when Boston had its greatest team, whose best player was, of course, Larry Bird. Bird was always my favorite Celtic – until this year, when I discovered their head coach, Joe Mazzulla. When I first saw Mazzulla give a post-game interview, I thought he was kind of weird. He showed little emotion and gave terse answers filled with statistics. But then I saw a short feature that NBC Sports did on him that revealed him to be an exceptionally normal man.
A native of Rhode Island and the son of a coach, Mazzulla led the University of West Virginia to the 2010 NCAA Final Four as team captain. Basketball was his life. Forced to quit after college because of injury, he suddenly had to reevaluate life’s meaning. “I had to reinvent myself because my identity had been in something that’s fleeting.” He realized that his Catholic faith was where he found his truest identity. The feature shows Mazzulla refilling the holy water font in the chapel that he has in his house, where he and his wife try to begin and end each day. Mazzulla and his wife married nine years ago, when he was an assistant college coach. Elsewhere, they talk about an important marriage retreat they went on for college coaches and their wives. There they learned that over 50% of basketball coaches at the college and professional levels are divorced. The retreat taught them the importance of reconnecting with each other at the end of every season, even if they didn’t think they needed it. They learned skills about how to communicate, to trust, and to rely on each other as husband and wife, especially through the stresses that come with Mazzulla’s job. It also encouraged them to develop a shared prayer life.
The ease with which Mazzulla speaks about prayer and his relationship with Christ gives you the sense that he genuinely loves being Catholic. The NBC feature shows him with his family at a local restaurant where, before eating, he leads the group in saying grace, making it look like the most normal thing in the world to do – which it is. During dinner, he mentions that his favorite place to visit is the Holy Land, where he says he hopes to go after winning the NBA Championship. “Most people go to Disney World,” he says, “but the Holy Land is the most important place to go and re-center yourself.” He has a collection of rosary beads, including one made from wooden pieces of the parquet floor of the old Boston Garden. On days when they have home games, Mazzulla likes to get to the arena early, when it’s quiet, and pray the rosary while walking around the court.
To some, the sight of a man walking and saying the rosary in public, or happily speaking about Jesus, or being friends with priests, or saying grace at a restaurant, or praying with his wife, or going on a marriage retreats, might seem weird. But Joe Mazzulla, coach of the 2024 World Champion Boston Celtics, shows us that it’s exceptionally normal.
posted 6/29/24
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 