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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, April 5, 2002

HPU left in good hands

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist

When his sons, Gino and Tino, were young, Tony Sellitto would entrust their care to the babysitter they came to call "Uncle Russell."

Yesterday Sellitto began turning over to Russell Dung the care of something else close to his heart, Hawai'i Pacific University athletics.

After 30 side-by-side years together in coaching, the last 14 at HPU, Dung is succeeding his godfather as the Sea Warriors' athletic director and head basketball coach.

When Sellitto announced last year that the 2001-02 season would be his last, the expectation the length of the Fort Street Mall campus was that Dung, 48, would take over. The only question seemed to be when the announcement would be made.

For these two, at first as master and mentor and more recently as colleagues, have been steadfastly linked since Dung was a student and player for Sellitto in the late 1960s at Maryknoll High.

It is a relationship that survived even the deflating first-quarter 'D' in sociology Sellitto gave Dung as a senior at Maryknoll. Theirs is a friendship that long ago found a common philosophy and understanding, taking root when Dung followed Sellito into coaching.

When Dung converted to Catholicism, Sellitto became his godfather. Dung would become godfather to Sellitto's sons and they to his children, Ryan and Desiree.

That the two coaches have successfully complemented and sparked each other, Dung's calm to Sellitto's explosiveness; Dung's big picture view to Sellitto's here-and-now focus, is attested to by a succession of titles.

"There really wasn't much choice; the team couldn't have both of us yelling," Dung observes.

With Sellitto roaring and pacing and Dung studiously charting defenses, fouls and timeouts, they helped Maryknoll to Interscholastic League of Honolulu crowns in both boys and girls basketball, two state championships and, at HPU, the 1993 NAIA National Championship.

Along the way they've won more games than either can remember, going 295-136 at HPU alone. Together with other long-time assistants Darrell Matsui and Francis Fletcher, it has been a coalition that has endured changing decades, schools and styles.

Not even Sellitto's bout with prostate cancer and a stroke several years back could separate them for long.

"It's been like a marriage," Sellitto says of their partnership. "We were together 10 years before we knew it. All of a sudden it just grew, 20 years, 25 years... and we didn't think about it anymore."

But now, at age 65, Sellitto says it is time to leave the court and find a place in the stands. "It is a different time; a different generation," Sellitto says. "It is time to move on."

Now, not for the last time will Sellitto leave something dear to him in Dung's trusted hands.