After losing Coach H last year, the Girls Basketball Team welcomed their new head coach, Coach Joe Colombo onto Falcon territory after being head and assistant coach at DePaul, Pequannock, and Becton. He started off the season in November with the hard job of taking over the program as well as building relationships with the Varsity and JV team. Although Joe’s coaching style was very new to the team when he first made an appearance on the court, he grew onto each one of the players after constructing a comfortable atmosphere for them all to be themselves. Even when the team wasn’t in the right mindset to take on challenges opposed by the other team or by life, Joe let the court be a safe space for every teammate. Coach Joe was the last piece that the Lady Falcons needed to create a great bond with their team on and off the court. Seeing his influential impact, The Falcon Flyer had prepared a few questions for the new incoming coach that he was happy to answer:
How did you get into coaching basketball?
“I actually started coaching youth rec basketball while I was still in high school. I guess I did a decent job because I was then asked by some parents if I would be willing to help coach their daughter’s AAU team. I also volunteered to work with some local boy’s travel programs. I really fell in love with coaching, even more than playing. In my freshmen year in college, I took a job as the JV girls coach at DePaul Catholic and spent the next 14 seasons as either an assistant or head coach at DePaul, Mary Help, Pequannock, and Becton. I took two seasons off before coming to Saddle Brook when my wife and I had our two kids and I’m so happy to be back!”
What are your goals for the team and players in the following season?
“This season was about establishing routines and building a culture for what we want the program to look like. It took some time for me to learn about the players and for them to learn about me. While we continue that next season, we can start to narrow our focus on building an identity and a system of play which will help us be more consistent than this past season. You can’t win a state tournament every year and you can’t win the league every year but our goal is to always compete with the best and have a chance to make a run at those things. Most importantly we just want to see individual improvement and growth in the players.”
QUESTIONS
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WITH COLOMBO