Former PSU Star Joe Crispin Getting Coaching Career Started At Rowan
By Matt Leon
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- Basketball has been a huge part of Joe Crispin's life for a long, long time.
He was a star guard at Pitman High School in South Jersey who, along with his brother Jon, led the Panthers to the state title in 1997. Then he moved on to Penn State where he scored 1,986 career points and led the Nittany Lions to the "Sweet 16" of the NCAA Tournament in 2001. Crispin got a taste of the NBA (21 games split with the Lakers and Suns during the 2001-02 season) before heading overseas where he spent several years playing in countries like Italy, Greece and Ukraine.
Now he's back in New Jersey, but still very much connected to the game he loves. He was recently named an assistant coach at Division III Rowan University in Glassboro, and he will serve on both the staff of men's coach Joe Cassidy and women's coach Gabby Lisella.
"I'm really excited," Crispin tells KYW Newsradio. "This is the beginning of my second career and, Lord willing, what I'll do for the rest of my life. So naturally excited about the transition. It has been a few years in the making. I've always known I wanted to do it throughout my playing career. I knew I was going to move towards this. And I'm ready to roll."
Crispin talks about how this opportunity with the Profs came to pass.
'Well, I've known Joe for a long time," Crispin says. "This past year after we moved back to the area, I was kind of taking a year to do some other things. I have a book that, Lord willing, I'll finish at some point. But I'd stop by practice, I really did want to get a better idea, I've seen a lot of Division I games and various things last year, of the Division III landscape. So in talking to him and just being over here for games and practices etc., things started to evolve. I got to know (Athletic Director) Dan Gilmore as well, eventually the opportunity arose for me to work with both programs. So it really became a no-brainer for me."
It is rare to have an assistant serve on both the men's and women's staffs at the same time, but Crispin is looking forward to the challenge.
"It's going to be long days," Crispin says. "It'll be two seasons in one. But for me, from my perspective as a coach, if you want to get good, you need to practice. You need to be able to handle different players and different situations, different offense, different defense, game management, all that goes into play. And managing from the sidelines, it's not completely different, I mean I always managed on the court and you've got to know fouls and you've got to know time and score and situation, etc, but it's different. So from my standpoint, you want as much practice in that as you can get, and this is a great opportunity."
Anyone that has ever watched Crispin play or talked basketball with him knows that coaching really is a perfect fit. He says there is a lot he is looking forward to in this new gig.
"I enjoy being part of a team," Crispin says. "I enjoy kind of being on mission, you know, what's my mission? And really that kind of ultimate mission is to bring great basketball to this community. Naturally this year I have a chance to, hopefully, do so on both sides for the men and women. There's two things that I like. One, you want to be successful, you want to win. I'm a competitor, I want to have great teams. But, on the same side, I want to help form teams that are teams you want to come watch. There's a difference between just winning the games 42-40 and being kind of ugly, and winning games in a way that makes people say, 'I want to come back.' That's how I always wanted to play. It's a service. You're using your gifts to serve other people in basketball and that's really what gets me fired up to coach."
The basketball teams at Rowan open practice on October 15th.
You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.
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