We'll miss his color, candor
• Aloha game for Sellitto as HPU meets BYUH
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist
Tonight, Tony Sellitto coaches his last conference home basketball game at Blaisdell Center Arena.
Tomorrow, the prospect of tranquility finally comes to the corner of Kapi'olani and Ward.
When the playoffs conclude, Sellitto will leave basketball following 37 years as a coach. No one who has followed his remarkable career — winning a state high school title at Maryknoll or a national NAIA crown at Hawai'i Pacific University, home for the past 14 seasons — expects him to go quietly into the night.
And not just because first place in the Pacific West Conference will be on the line against Brigham Young University-Hawai'i. But because that is just the way Sellitto has always been, a 40-minute gale force personality on the court, as colorful as he is competitive. And, less publicly observed, a caring, kind mentor off of it.
To be anything else would be out of character for the man who long ago became known as "Tony the Tiger" for the way he prowled — and growled — along the sideline.
And if there is one thing Sellitto has been, besides hard to ignore, it is genuine. When his 1993 Sea Warriors showed up at the NAIA National Tournament, Sellitto declared to all who cared to listen, "we're the best team here." Then, despite the snickers, they proved it by winning the state's only national basketball title.
Nothing new in that, either. Beginning with the "Freeway Five" at Maryknoll back in the mid-1970s, Sellitto often proclaimed the same thing in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu. More often than not, he was right.
These days, at age 64, Sellitto is no longer as hands-on as he once was when he had to be involved in every minute of practice and pre-game. It is one of the few steps back he's taken since a stroke and bout with prostate cancer in 1997.
But once the ball is in the air, there is no mistaking that the fire still burns after 294 college wins against 134 losses. For any of his players, or referees, to assume otherwise is to risk high decibel wrath.
And hell hath no fury like Sellitto witnessing a repeated mental lapse. Physical shortcomings he deals with. Mental errors, especially recurring ones, drive the state's winningest college coach to noise code limits.
Indeed, a couple generations have come to know that Catherine Sellitto, now 84, must be the best basketball player around. Why? Because her son has made a career of blaring to those who violate fundamentals that even his mother could do it better.
Soon, Sellitto will retire. Just don't expect him to go quietly.
