By Tom Robinson, NEPABasketball.com
Tim Barletta hopes to put lessons learned on the football sideline to use when he takes the court as just the third head coach in the history of the highly successful Hazleton Area boys basketball program.
The Hazleton Area School Board voted Barletta into the position Thursday night, promoting Barletta from head of the school’s freshman program.
Barletta replaces Mike Joseph, who led the program to 273 wins in 14 seasons. Under Joseph’s direction, the Cougars won more than three-quarters of their games and claimed nine Wyoming Valley Conference divisional titles, six District 2 championships and four District 2-4 Subregional titles, along with reaching the state semifinals in Class 6A in 2018.
When Hazleton Area decided to open the boys basketball coaching position, Joseph originally reapplied. He later removed his name from consideration.
Barletta has more than 30 seasons of coaching experience across three sports, but this will be his first time leading a program on the high school varsity level.
The chance to work with the late George Curry, the winningest high school coach in Pennsylvania history, is something Barletta treasures and thinks is helpful to him in coaching.
“I literally walked every step with him his last year of coaching,” said Barletta, who was special assistant to Curry from 2012-15 at Berwick after also serving as an assistant coach on Curry’s staff in 2007-08. “ … It was an honor for me because my family had a sand and gravel plant in Nescopeck so I met Coach through my Dad when I was 10. To be involved with him was a great honor.
“I learned a lot about coaching and learned even more about life. He was a tremendous guy and a great influence on so many people and none more than me.”
Barletta shared the influence he hopes to have on Hazleton Area players.
“A good coach has an impact on kids’ lives far beyond their years in high school,” Barletta said. “I want to teach things like trust and commitment and sacrifice; things that they will carry on for 40 years or longer because that’s what I think coaching is about.
“Any great coach on any level always had an impact on his players’ lives. We’re going to keep the standards high that each of the previous coaches set and we’re going to honor the traditions of Hazleton basketball.”
Barletta, whose brother Fred is the Hazleton Area athletic director, began coaching basketball in 1987-88 as the eighth grade coach at West Hazleton Junior High. He later spent three seasons as varsity assistant/junior varsity coach at Freeland.
West Hazleton and Freeland were the schools joined with Hazleton to create Hazleton Area in 1992.
Barletta, a commercial truck tire salesman for McCarthy Tire, based out of Hazleton, returned to coaching in 2003 to lead the Hazleton Area eighth-grade team for three years. He spent the last 14 years as freshman coach, leading that team the entire time Joseph was in charge of the varsity.
After 28 seasons, Hazleton Area turns to Barletta as just its third head coach.
Bruce Leib won 15 district titles and 458 games while coaching Hazleton, then Hazleton Area. He was named state Coach of the Year by the Associated Press in 1989 and led the Cougars to the state final in 1993.
Joseph took it from there.
“Bruce Leib hired me in the program in 2003 and Mike Joseph put me in position where I otherwise wouldn’t be where I am today,” Barletta said. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for those guys and our traditions.”
The Cougars seemed on the verge of another championship season as January was coming to an end, but dropped their last five games – including losses by one, three and four points – and six of their last seven to finish 13-10. They went from first to fifth place in Wyoming Valley Conference Division 1 in the process, then lost their first District 2-4 Class 6A Subregional game despite being the top seed.
“I think the program’s in good shape,” Barletta said. “I will say this: The attitude of our program has to be that we were in fifth place last year. There was a four-way tie in Division 1 and Hazleton wasn’t part of it, so we were in fifth place.
“The attitude has to be we were a fifth-place team. If that doesn’t motivate you, you need not to be in the program. All the motivation we need right now, with all the tradition that is in our basketball program, is to know that last year, we were in fifth place and we’re going to stay in fifth place unless we have the attitude that we’re willing to do the work to be where we need to be.”
That work is on hold for now.
As part of each school’s state-mandated specific planning for the return to sports during the coronavirus pandemic, the Hazleton Area School District has only cleared fall sports teams to conduct voluntary offseason workouts.
When the Cougars do get back on the court, Barletta expects at least a slight modification to their playing style.
“I believe that every time there’s a coaching change, there’s change,” Barletta said. “Mike Joseph was a little different than Bruce Leib in style of play.
“Mike was more up-tempo. I think we’ll run more of a continuity, half-court offense. When fastbreaks are there, we’ll certainly take them, but I think we might be a little more patient.”
Barletta, a 1983 graduate, was a three-year letterman and two-year starter in baseball at Hazleton High School and a two-year letterman in basketball when the school still participated in the East Penn Conference, one of the toughest in the state, and as a District 11 member. His coaching experience extends to baseball as an assistant on the varsity level at West Hazleton in 1988-89 and Hazleton Area in the 2005-2008 seasons.
The coaching change is the fourth in District 2 boys basketball so far this offseason.
Ben Domiano replaced Christian Sunseri at Lackawanna Trail, Chris Parker replaced Rich Jones at Wyoming Valley West and Bob Calarco Jr. replaced Jason Kingery at Berwick.
