'Do Things That Show You Care'

When he was just 11, Carmen Maciariello attended summer basketball camp at Siena College and received a harsh assessment from the director.

“Carmen’s a great kid. He has a great attitude, but he needs to find another sport. Basketball’s not for him,” the director wrote.

Few could’ve scripted what ensued.

Years later, Maciariello walked on at Siena  — and went on to a successful professional playing career for multiple teams in Italy.

In 2019, he was named the head coach of his alma mater — and guided it to a pair of first-place league finishes in his first two seasons.

This past March, he was let go by Siena, but bears no ill will and continues to reflect on the lessons and experiences of the past five years.

The Daily Coach spoke to Maciariello recently about how he distinguished himself in recruiting, the fast-evolving nature of college coaching, and the importance of paying back the people who help you.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Maciariello is a member of The Daily Coach Network.

Coach, thanks a lot for doing this. Tell us a little about your childhood and some lessons from it.

I grew up in Clifton Park, right outside of Albany, N.Y. I was always a soccer player, from 6 or 7 years old, all the way to my sophomore year of high school. But I didn’t love it. I loved basketball. In fifth grade, my first coach was actually a former Olympian named Bob Jones. He coached us hard, and I heard things I never had before in my life.

I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder from back when I was told I shouldn’t play basketball, to when I was told I wasn’t a Division I player, to when I was told I couldn’t play professionally or be a head coach.

People are going to talk, but all you can do is work, take care of your process, live the right way, treat people with kindness, and be a genuine person.

You graduated from college and then played professionally for several years in Italy. How did that experience shape you?

I lived in Sicily in a town called Ragusa. I also lived outside of Milan, and outside of Bologna, and in the heel of the boot.

Back then, there was no Zoom or Skype. I was going to an internet café and spending 20 Euros for an hour of e-mail time and surfing the web. I loved playing, but needed more in my life than just sleep, practice, lift weights, shoot, eat, sleep and do it all again.

I’d read the Bible every night, play video games, go for walks and just figure out what made me tick. I did a lot of self-reflection and wouldn’t trade those years for anything.

You come back to the states and begin your coaching career with a low-level position at Siena. What’d you learn in those early years on the sidelines?

I was making $3,000 and living at home. I had no health benefits. My office was in a locker room with no windows. I had a wooden table and six VCRs. I had a whole wall of VHS tapes and was doing film exchange. (Then-Head Coach Fran McCaffery) basically taught me this is essentially a Fortune 500 company. You have to run this like a business.

I was in charge of making sure the bus was on time and the food was ready. We’d go on the road, and to save money, we would never cater in the hotel. Before we got on the bus, I had to make sure the salad, and the water, and the bread were on the table. I’m calling these restaurants, and they think I’m crazy. I’m like, “No, no, you don’t understand. I need to make sure when we walk in the door, it’s there so we can sit down. Then, when five minutes passes, that pasta dish and protein has to be there so we can eat and get out in 30 minutes.”

I had a lot of indigestion and couldn’t eat because I was always nervous it wasn’t going to be done properly and it was going to be on me. But it a was great experience. It was always about the players, and I learned a lot.

You work as assistant at several schools, then return to Siena as the head coach in 2019 and win the regular season conference title your first year. What worked right away and was there anything you weren’t fully prepared for?

I was really fortunate to have really good players with high character who cared about winning more than themselves. You have to be able to recruit that and find that. There was leadership in the locker room. I could give those guys a message, and they would keep everybody in line.

The number of decisions you have to make is overwhelming. I had two veteran assistants who really knew what they were doing. That helped a ton. I needed to get better at training people. I was too locked into the process of what I needed to do. I think the delegation was difficult for me at first.

You have to communicate the vision. I’m hands on, but I’m hands off. I want to give you the framework or the vehicle, but I want you to figure out how you’re going to get there. Your process might be different than mine, but you may end up at the same result.

You may actually have a better way of doing it, and it may come out better than what I could’ve done, so I’ll give you the freedom to do it. But what you can’t do is cut corners or not want the work.

You had a really good reputation as a recruiter. What were the keys to distinguishing yourself?

It’s being able to have more layers to a relationship. You’re not just having the same basic conversation with a kid on the phone. There’s no significance to that. You want to be able to establish meaningful conversations and deeper connections. Maybe it’s talking to mom about where she met her husband, how he was as a baby, ask for a baby picture.

Do things that show you care. How you recruit them is going to be how you coach them. It’s almost like customer-service — having a level of follow-up and follow through.

Were there any elements beyond talent or character that you looked for in players?

I like when people can be honest. What do they fear? What are some of their deep, dark secrets? If kids and parents can open up about those types of things, now you’re really going to be able to reach them and coach them to their full potential. But I feel like there’s not a lot of honesty left. A lot of people don’t want to tell the truth. I look for that in terms of questions.

We also evaluate parents. Coach (Dan) Hurley obviously just won his second national title and talked about it recently. That’s important. You can’t have mixed messages. They can’t hear one thing from you and your staff and then something different from their parents. That will break down things you’ve been building up.

How is coaching now different than it was when you broke into the profession?

To get in and stay in the business, it takes a lot more luck. It’s more about who you know than how good you are. You can be the best worker and tactician, but if you don’t have the right relationships and right connections, you may not get in. It’s about being at the right level.

It’s still about the players. You still have to be able to recruit, but now, it’s a different type of recruitment. Back in the day, guys were getting paid under the table, and it was more about agents and runners. Now, everyone’s using agents and runners. You have to know more than ever. And it’s about “What can you do for me?” It’s more transactional. Even with UConn, it’s still transactional, but there’s accountability, and there’s love, and there’s trust. And there’s team-building.

Now, you’re more a general manager and an architect than you are a head coach. The head-coaching piece back in the day people would say was about 15 percent of the job. Now, the head coaching piece is maybe 8 percent. It’s budget, it’s salary cap, it’s player-management, parent-management, NIL. All of that stuff now is really what’s changed.

Obviously, Siena makes the decision to part ways with you last month. Can you take us through the emotions of that and how you’ve picked up the pieces?

My athletic director at Siena, John D’Argenio, was amazing. He’s a first-class human.

I apologized for the season. That was never the expectation. We always want to compete for championships. I played there and won one as a player… won back-to-back regular season titles. I was disappointed, but I understand the business side of it.

But then, it was, I’m trying to find a job and help my assistants and calling the recruits we had.

I haven’t stopped that, and I think I have my mojo back a little bit.

I know you’ve worked really hard in recent weeks calling around and trying to help your assistants get jobs. Why is that so important to you?

I think some of my peers are kind of taken aback that I’m working harder to try to get my assistants jobs than myself, but I owe it to them because they took a leap of faith on me. I think it’s the right thing to do.

I’ve heard horror stories of guys not even talking to their former coach. I made sure to meet up with my guys at the Final Four. You’ve got to. They have families, and wives, and kids, and they invested in me. I want to make sure they understand it’s a two-way street.

I also think now a lot of people don’t do the right thing anymore. It’s harder to do the right thing. It’s harder to tell the truth all the time, but that’s what I believe. And I’m never going to change.

Q&A Resources

Carmen Maciariello ― Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn 

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