Bracy Column: To Phil Martelli, thank you for helping my sportswriting dreams come true

By AARON BRACY

September 16, 2025

Big5Hoops.com

On mornings inside my childhood home on 34 Sheffield Drive in Willingboro, you could find me seated at the kitchen table. At my back, the window overlooking the narrow asphalt driveway. Over my right shoulder, the tiny black and white television. And in front of me, spread out around a bowl of Apple Jacks like treasure maps, the sports pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Burlington County Times.

It was there, in that kitchen and deep inside those pages, where my dream of becoming a sportswriter developed. Specifically, reading Bill Lyon’s sports columns in the Inquirer planted a seed for this then-youngster that maybe I could make a living writing about sports, something about which I was so passionate. Lyon’s columns transplanted me to a different place, taking me inside the games and the athletes who played them while tugging at my emotions, sometimes resulting in tears streaming into my cereal bowl.

I remember thinking how cool it would be to learn to write in a way that, like Lyon, my story could touch someone’s emotions deeply enough that it would make them cry. Through high school, I kept reading and dreaming, publishing my first stories as part of the Willingboro High School journalism club. As practice, I also often would hand-write stories about sports, sometimes in study hall, and broadcast games that I watched on my upstairs bedroom TV into a handheld recorder. I was hooked on sports journalism.

My first real taste of what I hoped to become professionally came during my sophomore year at Saint Joseph’s University. On December 2, 1995, I was part of the crew that broadcast the Hawks’ game against Delaware in Newark. Now, “broadcast” might be a bit of a stretch considering the signal for the Saint Joseph’s student radio station really could only then be heard in the Campion Student Center—and that is if everything was working perfectly. Nonetheless, there I was courtside at the Bob Carpenter Center when a rookie head coach named Phil Martelli earned his first-ever college coaching victory with a 64-56 win over the Blue Hens.

Naturally, as someone who devoured newspaper stories about games and athletes, I wanted to learn more about Martelli and the Hawks’ triumph. So, figuring this is how Lyon might do it, the next day I walked from my tiny dorm room to Martelli’s seemingly-as-tiny office at Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse to ask questions about the Delaware game. There, I was greeted by Martelli’s secretary, Clare Ariano, to whom I explained that I am Aaron Bracy from the Saint Joseph’s student radio station here to speak to Coach Martelli about yesterday’s win over Delaware.

“Do you have an appointment?” I remember Ariano asking.

“Do I need one?” I asked.

I don’t recall if I actually didn’t think that I needed an appointment to speak to the head coach of the Saint Joseph’s University men’s basketball team, or if I figured that calling ahead might be met with an answer that I didn’t want. So, I just showed up unannounced.

“Hang on,” Ariano told me.

Returning to her desk, she said that Martelli would meet with me shortly.

I don’t remember anything that I asked Martelli that Monday on December 3, 1995, but I do vividly still remember being inside his cramped office. Most importantly, I recall the feeling that the encounter—my first interview—had on me, that this is exactly what I want to do as a career.

Would I have pursued sportswriting had Martelli turned me down that December day? Probably. Did him saying yes to me help continue my path to a career that now has spanned nearly three decades covering sports in Philadelphia? Absolutely.

My relationship with Martelli, for me anyway, came full circle 27 ½ years after that memorable December day when on April 13, 2024, I sat across from him in the Martelli family living room, where the coach regaled me with stories for more than three hours about the 2003–04 Hawks as one of the final interviews for my book on that memorable season.

Martelli, who will be honored with the Joe Lapchick Character Award on Friday, of course, went on to many more victories after the Delaware win, finishing his career at Saint Joseph’s as the school’s all-time leader in coaching victories with a 444-328 (.575) record in 24 years at the helm. He was tabbed four times as the Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year and made seven appearances in the NCAA tournament, none more special than when an underrecruited, underdog group, led by Jameer Nelson, came seconds away from the Final Four in 2004.

Twenty years later, I got the idea to write a book about that team and season.

Backing up, to become a good writer, I thought, I needed to read good writing. Lyon helped to form the base, and I set out to read the best that sportswriting had to offer as I pursued this career path. So, I printed out Sports Illustrated’s list of the Top 100 sports books of all-time and set out to read them all. As I began getting through one book after another, another dream developed, a dream to one day write a book of my own.

On March 1, 2025, that dream was realized with the publication of A Soaring Season: The Incredible, Inspiring Story of the 2003–04 Saint Joseph’s Hawks (Brookline).

Would the book have been interesting had Martelli turned me down that April day? (Insert author bias here.) Probably. Did him saying yes to me and granting me so much of his time make the book more interesting? Absolutely.

Writing this column in the wee hours of a recent morning has reminded me of one of my favorite movie scenes. In The Pursuit of Happyness, Will Smith’s character tells his son that he won’t amount to much as a basketball player because Smith’s character never was much of an athlete. When the disappointed son puts the basketball in a trash bag, Smith’s character realizes his mistake and unleashes a heart-tugging soliloquy that I often have played to myself over the years as a personal reminder:

“Don’t ever let somebody tell you, you can’t do something. Not even me. You got a dream? You gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you, you can’t do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.”

Dreams, I think, are worth holding tightly, worth pursuing. Along the way, there are people who help with your pursuit, whether by word or action.

To you Phil Martelli, from the teenager in his childhood kitchen, wide-eyed undergrad in your office, and excited author-to-be in your living room, thank you for helping my dreams come true.

 —

Aaron Bracy has covered sports in Philadelphia for nearly three decades for various publications and as a freelancer for the Associated Press. His first book, A Soaring Season: The Incredible, Inspiring Story of the 2003–04 Saint Joseph’s Hawks (Brookline), can be ordered HERE. He is working on his second book, which will chronicle the memorable 2000–01 season of Allen Iverson and the Philadelphia 76ers. Follow Bracy on social media HERE. Contact him at bracymedia@gmail.com.