Former St. Ignatius head basketball coach Rob Marcaletti has been racking up the frequent flyer miles these days.
When he returns house on Tuesday, he’ll have traveled greater than 9,000 miles in 11 days to see his former participant, Darrion Trammell, all through a March Insanity run with the San Diego State Aztecs.
Marcaletti, who coached Trammell for 3 seasons at SI, flew to Indianapolis final Saturday evening along with his spouse, Elisa, earlier than renting a automobile and driving to Louisville for Sunday’s Elite 8 victory over Creighton, the place Trammell sank the successful free throw with 1.2 seconds left. Every week later, he flew to Texas with Metropolis School of San Francisco (CCSF) head coach Justin Labagh and assistant coach Adam D’Acquisto for the Remaining 4 and Nationwide Championship Sport.
Labagh and D’Acquisto coached Trammell at CCSF throughout the 2019-20 season, the place the Rams had been 30-0 and on their strategy to a state championship look earlier than being shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“He was the MVP of that group,” Labagh stated.
Marcaletti, who stepped down from his teaching place at St. Ignatius that very same 12 months whereas remaining an assistant athletic director, has spent the final two seasons as an assistant on the CCSF employees.
“He’s so likable, man. He’s such child,” Marcaletti stated of Trammell. “He’s the underdog everybody needs to root for.”
Whereas discovering flights to Houston is often a breeze, because of the town’s two massive airports, the Remaining 4 made it virtually unimaginable to journey to the nation’s fourth-largest metropolis. As an alternative, the coaches flew to Jack Brooks Regional Airport, situated between Port Arthur and Beaumont. They left San Francisco at 6 a.m. and had a layover in Dallas earlier than arriving on the airport, which is situated only a 30-minute drive from the Louisiana state line. It’s a 97-mile drive from the airport to NRG Stadium, the place the Remaining 4 is being hosted.
“We needed to determine it out last-minute with household schedules,” Labagh stated. “However there was by no means a query of if we had been going to be right here.”
Ethan Kassel could be reached at [email protected]