100 win Paternostro values relationships more than records
For a man who has just recorded the 100th win of his relatively short coaching career, Rob Paternostro does not seem too concerned with the achievement.
Speaking to him via phone only days after his Leicester Riders beat the visiting Cheshire Jets 80-72, a win that kept the Riders unbeaten this season, Paternostro sounds tired and not in the mood to be asked one hundred questions about his 100th win, a disposition that is at odds with the normally generous, talkative Coach.
“I’m watching game tape,” comes the short reply from the fifth year BBL coach as I ask him what I’ve interrupted him doing, his voice giving away that he’s laying horizontally as if he is winding down for the evening. Today is marked in Paternostro’s diary as a ‘day-off’, although the Connecticut-born coach’s version of a ‘day of rest’ looks vastly different to yours and mine with Paternostro researching and studying game tape in his spare time. The only ‘rest’ that may come during this day is from the physical act of reclining to watch the game footage, although his mind won’t switch off as dissects what’s unfolding on screen.
Being Coach Paternostro is a 24/7 occupation. I can prove it:
Exhibit 1: He doesn’t sleep. I know this because when I text him something dumb about the Lakers in the early hours of the morning, I’ll get a reply.
Exhibit 2: When he takes his once annual, much needed and greatly deserved trip back home to the States to see family and old friends, Paternostro is working non-stop on researching and recruiting next seasons stars – the results of which are this seasons Losonsky, Taylor, Fraley and Couisnard.
If you hadn’t worked it out by now, Paternostro is all about hard work and making sure his teams are competitive. And it’s that very word that Paternostro uses when describing what he aims for every season as he builds his roster:
“When we first arrived here, it was important to go into the season with some talent,” explains Paternostro. “I think recruiting was always important. It’s not an exact science – sometimes you get it right, sometimes you may not – but you have to try to make your mark the best way you can and compete.
“We try to put a team together that from September to May is going to compete night in and night out. And that’s what the message is: ‘From the first night we take the floor on any practice, exhibition game or game, we are doing anything we can to win’. Sometimes it doesn’t work out but more times than not you can walk away saying ‘we competed’.”
As my phone call with the Riders coach continues and we discuss his career, it becomes apparent that Paternostro isn’t as concerned with his landmark 100th win as I am.
In fact, for a man who has won 100 games with an accompanying winning percentage of a smidge under 60%, recorded the most wins, the most home and away wins, the most league wins, the most 20+ league win seasons, the most top four league finishes (all in Riders history), as well as all the records from the memorable 2011/12 campaign, Paternostro talks very little about his on-court achievements, focusing instead on the off-court ones.
“The thing that most comes to my mind when people ask me about it (winning 100 games), are the relationships of the people who come through here and over the last few days, a week, people have called me from those teams and sent me messages.
“That means way more than any round number could mean or any kind of winning percentage.”
It should come as a surprise that the Riders Coach values relationships over records but with our conversation coming to it’s natural conclusion, Paternostro shows me exactly how he has built up such strong bonds throughout his career, as he ends the call with ‘Call me any time, man’.
For a man who is unlikely to have a spare minute in his loaded day, to be willing to answer my inane questions during the course of a 15 minute phone conversation, is staggering.
Paternostro is a class act. And a 100 game winning one at that.
