Phil Martelli is coming home. What’s next? ‘I just want to give back’

Phil Martelli is packing his things. Next stop: home.

The next stop after? He’s not so sure. For the second time in five years, Martelli is at a crossroads of sorts, though this time around is not quite the same as the last.

Unemployment begins May 1. His contract at Michigan, where he was associate head coach to Juwan Howard, is up a day earlier. Howard was fired in mid-March after five seasons. New coach Dusty May hasn’t asked Martelli to stay, and Martelli hasn’t asked to stay. And so the 69-year-old former St. Joseph’s coach is packing.

He has spent 46 consecutive basketball seasons coaching in some capacity, from his alma mater, Widener, to the former Bishop Kenrick High School; then 10 season as a St. Joe’s assistant before another 24 as its head coach until 2019, when he was fired. Back then? “The lowest of the lows,” Martelli said Monday. He withdrew from the public to his Delaware County basement feeling like a failure. He still says he hasn’t gotten over it, the feeling of letting down assistant coaches, staff members, their families. “I’ve never gotten to a point where I can say anything other than I’m sorry,” he said.

This time? Howard’s firing wasn’t unexpected. Martelli had time to brace for this next phase.

“I was always, for the last two years, thinking about if 68 was time to go do something else,” Martelli said. “Next season, I would be 70. I still have a lot of gas in my tank.

“I’ve taken more than I’ve given, and I gave all that I had, and I’m walking away, in both situations, with my memories and my relationships.”

» READ MORE: ‘No place like home’: Phil Martelli gets another memory to savor as acting Michigan coach at Palestra

So, what’s next?

Martelli rattled off a few things. He wants to continue to make a difference. He’s considering where his voice and experiences could fit into executive training and leadership roles, and thinks media is a possibility. He thinks he can help the game and the profession and will reach out to the National Association of Basketball Coaches, the NCAA, and others to see what opportunities there are.

“I think I can touch people, and I just want to make a difference,” he said. “I just want to give back. It’s created a sort of synergy and energy for me.”

What he didn’t mention, though, was coaching.

“I’m not moving anywhere,” Martelli said. He used the name of the day, John Calipari, who was leaving Kentucky for Arkansas. Not that Martelli would be on some short list, but if Calipari called, Martelli has no desire to move to Fayetteville, Ark. “I’m not chasing a basketball job,” he said.

It was either Ann Arbor, Mich., or home, and Martelli is coming home. It was pointed out, then, that he may have coached his last basketball game.

“I may have, yes,” he said.

And that sits with him how?

“Disappointed because of the year that we had,” he said.

“I’m not hat-in-hand. Five years ago, I was because I was so crushed and knew I could do more. Here, I’m disappointed that I didn’t do more, and I’m going out with us having such a bad record, and I own that, just like everyone on the staff owns it. That would’ve been the driving force for me to come back to Michigan for another year, that I can’t go out like this, but it wasn’t my decision.

“It gives me pause but it doesn’t freeze me that it might be the last time I was in a locker room. Five years ago, I was frozen because I just didn’t have self-value at that point because of a decision that was out of my control.”

The next phase of his life is fully in his control. It will start by heading back home to Judy, his wife of 47 years. He’ll get to spend more time with his daughter, Elizabeth, and he’ll get to go watch his two sons coach — Phil Jr. coming off a 20-win debut season as the head coach at Bryant, Jimmy an assistant at Penn State. There will be more time for his 10 grandchildren.

He made one thing clear, though: “I’m not coming home to retire and sit on a porch somewhere.”

He’s not sitting in an office in Ann Arbor rummaging papers around a desk between now and April 30, either. He’ll be in town this weekend at the American Cancer Society’s Coaches vs. Cancer BasketBall gala, where he and Judy will be honored along with Fran and Ree Dunphy. And on April 25, Martelli will attend his alma mater St. Joe’s Prep’s Hall of Excellence ceremony.

» READ MORE: From 2019: Phil Martelli isn’t home in Michigan, not like he was at St. Joseph’s. But he’s all good.

Those are among the few remaining dates on the calendar when he knows where he’ll be.

What about Nov. 1, the first of the month when the 2024-25 college basketball season begins?

“I’m not artistic, but I would use this term … I hope on Nov. 1 that I am painting a mosaic, that I am appropriately busy, and I’ll have the time to go see Bryant play, see Penn State play, my grandson should be playing in high school … that I’ll have a chance to do all of those things.”

If this was his last coaching gig, it’s more than Michigan’s 8-24 record that has him feeling a bit disappointed. A bucket-list item might not be checked off, and it was a fitting day to be having this conversation.

“My bucket list, which was to coach on this Monday night in April, is not going to come to fruition,” he said. “I’m still going to hold out that I’ll meet [Bruce] Springsteen somewhere along the line. And meeting Tiger Woods … I’m going to hold those out.”

He has replaced that first item with a new one: “Go make a difference, which is what I’ve always tried to do. That has me full of energy,” Martelli said.

“I need to drop a pebble in the pond and see where the waves go.”