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REVERSE THE CURSE for Lowellville's Tony Matisi
REVERSE THE CURSE?
Lowellville’s Tony Matisi has been one of the most successful coaches of the last decade. He’s also been one of the unluckiest.
By Joe Scalzo
lowellville
Directions for reading this story.
Hold out your hand.
Spread your fingers.
Hold them up to your face.
Read through the cracks.
This is a story about a good man with bad luck and it starts in the Lowellville High School bathroom, where Laraine Matisi is busy counting tiles instead of watching her husband’s games.
Or maybe it starts in an auxiliary gym at Hubbard High School, where she’s grading papers instead of watching her husband’s games.
Or maybe it starts in the hotel room she’s threatened to get for road games where she would sit instead of watching her husband’s games.
Or maybe it starts with her cell phone, which sits silent until the moment her son John texts her because there’s less than a minute left and the game is in hand and nobody got hurt and it’s OK for her to exhale.
Because, you see, her husband Tony — the grizzly bear-looking, teddy-bear acting, big-hearted, small-egoed girls basketball coach at Lowellville — has a problem.
He’s cursed.
Back up two weeks. The Rockets are playing Heartland Christian in the second round of the Division IV playoffs. Senior point guard Emily Carlson — whose listed height of 5-foot-7 includes at least three phone books and whose unlisted weight might not have three digits — was flying down the court after a rebound.
Then she got fouled.
“And then she was just flying through the air ...” Matisi said.
Carlson landed on her arm, cried out in pain and ... for ... 10 ... long ... seconds ... she ... didn’t ... get ... up.
“I swear, the whole place went ffffft,” Matisi said. “And we’re like, ‘This is it, this is it, this is it.’
“I’ll tell you what. It was an instant flashback.”
To what? Matisi didn’t say. Maybe because he couldn’t decide between:
A.) Dana Donatelli’s ACL injury in 2005.
She was a senior all-league center on the team that came closest to Columbus. Led by All-Ohioan Amanda Nero, the Rockets made it to the regional finals and lost by three points to Mansfield St. Peter’s.
Three. Measly. Points.
Ask Matisi about that year and he’ll pause, then shake his head and say, “We had a great shot. We lost by three. If we would have had Dana, I swear we would have ...”
Then his voice trails off.
B.) Ali Grapevine’s ACL injury in 2008.
The senior all-league center tore her ACL in the sectional semifinals. The Rockets lasted one game, then lost by 30 in the sectional finals.
C.) Taylor Hvisdak’s broken arm in 2010.
Hvisdak broke it in the district semifinal and the Rockets lost by one point to Cuyahoga Heights a week later in the regional semifinal.
D.) Kaye Solak’s and Hvisdak’s ACL injuries last year.
Solak tore her ligament in the eighth game of the 2010-11 season. Hvisdak — the team’s leading scorer — tore hers during the sectional tournament.
The Rockets won a district title anyway, and Hvisdak played the regional semifinal on a torn ACL. Lowellville lost by 14 to eventual regional champion Shadyside.
And, for the umpteenth time, Matisi spent his offseason wondering two things: “What if?” and “What next?”
Of course, that above list doesn’t include the second-biggest “What if?” of them all.
In 2007, the Rockets went 19-1 in the regular season. They earned the top seed in the tournament. They seemed capable of advancing to Columbus.
Then three senior starters were caught drinking and suspended. The parents hired lawyers and threatened to sue their way back on the team. But Matisi made one thing clear: Even if you’re eligible, you won’t play.
“Believe me, I had a chance to get out of that [suspension] but it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do,” Matisi said. “What would that have done for these kids now?”
So, armed with little more than Grapevine (then a junior), the Rockets lost by 12 in the district semifinals.
And Matisi was sick for weeks.
“Ask my wife, I was physically gone for a month,” Matisi said.
Said Laraine: “I’ve never seen him like that. I’ve never seen our relationship like that. But in hindsight, I know he did the right thing.”
Which brings us to tonight.
Three years ago, Matisi started three freshmen in a regional semifinal against top-ranked Berlin Hiland ... and got creamed by 33.
“We just felt so small,” Hvisdak said. “We were so little and then we were walking on the court and it felt like a huge court.
“It feels so long ago but it felt like, after that, ‘It doesn’t matter that we lost because we have three more shots.’ And now to think it’s our last year, it’s like, ‘All right, here we go.’”
Tonight’s opponent? Hiland, of course.
At 16-8, the Hawks aren’t as talented as their 2008 team, which won a state title. Or the 2009 and 2010 Hiland teams, which each finished second in the state. Heck, the Hawks needed two overtimes just to get out of this year’s second round.
Then they won the district semifinal by 33. And then they beat top-seeded Shadyside by 20 in the final. And afterward, Hiland coach Dave Schlabach told his good buddy Tony Matisi, “That’s the best we’ve played in three years.”
Matisi’s response? “Oh, that’s nice.”
Still. Matisi feels good. He’s got three 1,000 point scorers in his starting lineup (“My queens who have gotten way too much publicity this year”) and he’s got two unselfish role players (“That do all the dirty work to make them look good”) and he’s got a sign on his gymnasium wall that reads “It’s our time” and he can’t help but believe it because, well, nothing has gone wrong this year.
So far.
“We’ve been following Coach Matisi since we were little and it seems like every year, something has to happen, but I think this is it,” Hvisdak said.
“We want to do it for the team but we want to do it for him, too,” Solak added.
And here’s the best part: He’s got a promise from his wife that she’ll be in the Massillon Perry High School stands tonight, watching.
“No, no, no,” she said, chuckling. “No amount of Xanax could make me do it.
“But if he can get by the regional semis, I want to be there.”
Now. The Rockets could lose tonight. They could let the moment overwhelm them or Hiland run past them.
But Matisi can live with that. Really.
“I’m just thrilled to have everybody,” he said. “And I don’t care what happens as long as I have everybody.
“If I get my a-- kicked, I don’t care. I want to see what we are with everybody in the lineup.”
Sounds fair. Heck, after all the tears and the beers and the “Wait ’till next years,” the universe owes him that.
Right?