Warriors' P.J. Carlesimo Shows Many Facets -- Some See Controversial Coach's Ranting, Raving As `An Act'

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Another spin on the Golden State Warriors' coach, P.J. Carlesimo, comes from a land where water swirls counter-clockwise into the drains.

Andrew Gaze had left the nurturing guidance of his father, a legendary basketball coach in Australia, to play at Seton Hall under Carlesimo for the 1988-89 season, which ended with the Pirates losing an NCAA title by one point. Carlesimo's in-your-face style was a jolt for Gaze, who, like another person in the news the past two weeks, said he often found the coach to be abusive and belittling.

"Sometimes, P.J. was off the scales," said Gaze, who plays professionally for the Melbourne Tigers. But "I don't like to say that purely as a negative. Having said that, I don't know anybody who cares for his players more."

There's a sentence in that paragraph for everyone.

Latrell Sprewell, whose fingerprints were found on Carlesimo's neck, thought he felt the off-the-scales wrath. As the Portland Trail Blazers' Gary Trent said of his former coach, "You can't talk to grown men like that day in and day out and not expect everybody to be upset."

Carlesimo's coaching buddies admit their friend is demanding but wonder why that should be viewed as a negative. Even Carlesimo, 48, agrees that he can be profane and abrasive, though he could charm a snake out of a basket while he is saying as much.

Lombardi thing is `shtick'

The ranting and raving "is an act," said Mike Brown, who spent nine seasons as one of Carlesimo's assistants and is the head coach at Hunter College in New York City.

"When players know the guy, they see it's an act," Brown said. "The way he's being portrayed, that's not P.J. He's one of the nicest people I've ever known. Here's a guy who went to my mom's and dad's funerals and cried like they were his own parents.

"That whole screaming, ranting, maniac in the gym is another guy. It's his shtick. Pat Riley has his videotape. Phil Jackson has his Zen Buddhism. That whole Lombardi thing, that's P.J.'s shtick."

Carlesimo's Vince Lombardi thing goes way back, to a father who was a freshman lineman at Fordham in 1936, when Lombardi was one of the school's "Seven Blocks of Granite." Peter A. Carlesimo went on to become football coach at the University of Scranton, also serving at times as basketball coach, cross-country coach and athletic director in 26 years there.

"The next year," Peter Carlesimo liked to say, "they're going to put me in full-time."

Peter Carlesimo also became the A.D. at Fordham and the executive director of the National Invitation Tournament, steering the basketball event toward its present preseason format. He was nationally renowned as a public speaker, appearing on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" as well as more than 2,000 banquets in all but two states.

Versatile collegian

Peter J. Carlesimo, now known as P.J., was the first of the Carlesimos' 10 children, all of whom would graduate from Fordham.

A cleanshaven Carlesimo majored in classic literature and was a kicker, a left fielder, a goalie in water polo and a guard on Fordham's sixth-ranked, 26-3 basketball team, though he has said he spent that 1970-71 season "second from the end of the bench, right next to the manager." From that spot, he got a start on his coaching career.

"Even in college, I was going to be a lawyer, I was going to be a pilot, all those things," Carlesimo said. "Deep down, I was always a coach.

"There are a lot of different styles. I coach the way I've coached all my life. Coaching guys is all about getting them to play hard and do what's good for the team."

Carlesimo brought his teaching, collegiate style to the NBA three years ago with mixed results. He took Portland to the playoffs three years in a row but got into well-publicized run-ins with Rod Strickland and Clifford Robinson and was fired after last season.

Many Blazers remember his style.

"I'm pretty sure that at times somebody wanted to beat up P.J.," Trent told the Newark Star-Ledger. "It's just his coaching style. . . . But just because a man has authority over you, you can't abuse it, either."

Added Kenny Anderson: "Being with P.J. for a year, I know how he gets under your skin at times with his yelling and his swearing. You just have to somehow - underline somehow - hold your composure. Sometimes it doesn't work."

Made Seton Hall a contender

Before moving to the NBA, Carlesimo had turned Seton Hall into a national contender with Jersey boys and foreign-born players, even surviving in 1988 an editorial in the student newspaper that called for his removal.

When Carlesimo took Seton Hall, a Catholic school of about 9,400 students, to the 1989 NCAA championship game, he was in demand and his coaching style was not in question. He turned down an offer to coach at Kentucky. He coached the U.S. team in the 1990 World Basketball Championships and was Chuck Daly's assistant on the original Dream Team in 1992.

"People forget, P.J. was picked (for the Dream Team) because of his personality," said Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun, one of Carlesimo's best friends from the Big East Conference. "People knew Peej was a great person. He's like everybody's older brother."

"I can't think of a more unifying guy in coaching than P.J.," Calhoun said.

Integrity goes with job

A theme that runs through interviews with former Carlesimo assistants - Brown; Rod Baker, a former UC-Irvine head coach now assisting at Cincinnati; Chris Hamburger, head coach at Kean College of New Jersey; and John Carroll, a Boston Celtic assistant - is that Carlesimo believes there is an integrity that comes with being a basketball coach.

They are putting together pieces of the Sprewell-Carlesimo incident from afar and have many of the same questions and concerns. Most are questions that Carlesimo and Sprewell have been unwilling to answer because of pending litigation.

They wonder why Carlesimo and his coaching style seem to be on trial, though even Carlesimo concedes "that was inevitable."

"I never thought high-intensity was a minus," Baker said.

They have read that Carlesimo provoked Sprewell during practice by telling him to put some zip on his passes. A lot of lazy passes probably were made by a bad Warrior team, they figure, tailing away from outstretched hands and leading to turnovers.

"That's probably happened 100 times for them," Hamburger said.

They say they have noticed Carlesimo's adjustment to the NBA and that he is a much easier-going version of who he was at Seton Hall.

Carroll even wondered aloud if, by definition, Carlesimo could be called a screamer.

"Yell and scream, to me, is like Bob Knight," Carroll said. "There's a difference between a guy who yells and screams and a guy who picks his spots. Would (Carlesimo) yell and scream at a player who was late to practice 45 times? Wouldn't you?

"There's a method behind his madness. He's not a madman."

He `coaches with passion'

Former Seton Hall players Gaze and Danny Hurley said they thought Carlesimo's temperament was best-suited for the college game.

"He's definitely a yeller," said Hurley, a Rutgers assistant. "(But) I don't think there was ever even an incident of a guy talking back (at Seton Hall). He would throw Terry Dehere or Jerry Walker out of practice now and then, but I don't remember anyone ever talking back."

Hurley also recalls times when Carlesimo would be moved to tears by a performance and credits Carlesimo for helping him through his junior season, when Hurley took a leave of absence from the team after his brother Bobby's automobile accident.

Gaze also came to appreciate Carlesimo.

"My initial perception of P.J. certainly changed, from someone who is emotional and sometimes abusive to someone who coached with a passion," Gaze said. "When all is said and done, outside of my family, nobody cared for me more than he did."