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

Phil Martelli’s commute to the Palestra used to be so simple in his formative years. It was an easy trolley ride with his Finnegan Playground crew from Southwest Philadelphia into University City. Hop on, turn your brain off, get dropped off a few blocks away, watch hoops, head home.

On Sunday — Martelli returning to Philadelphia as a coach with the University of Michigan — the vehicle taking the team to the Palestra made a wrong turn and got stuck. To be fair, Martelli had no control over the bus carrying the Wolverines into one of college basketball’s most famous gyms, and when you punch “the Palestra,” into a GPS, it does typically take you to the small alley behind the building. If you’ve been there, as Phil had plenty of times, you know it’s not made for charter buses.

“I’m embarrassed to tell anybody that I was on a bus that got lost coming to the Palestra,” Martelli quipped after his Michigan team unraveled in the second half and lost to Penn State, 79-73.

Sunday didn’t end on a high note for Martelli and Michigan, but it gave the 69-year-old coach another pile of memories to cherish.

» READ MORE: Leave it to the Martellis to make Penn State-Michigan at the Palestra a true Philly affair

It started last year in Ann Arbor, when then-Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry pulled Michigan head coach Juwan Howard and Martelli aside and said he wanted to make Penn State’s game against Michigan a Palestra game as a way to honor Martelli. On Sunday morning, Howard told Martelli he wanted the Philadelphian to serve as the team’s honorary head coach. Penn State was Martelli’s scout, and he’d already served as acting head coach while Howard missed time recovering from heart surgery.

There was an order to it all, similar to how the Wolverines handled their trip to the Bahamas without Howard earlier this season. Martelli would handle the timeouts and substitutions, Howard Eisley handled the offense, Saddi Washington the defense, and Howard the lengthy media timeouts.

“I’ve said to a lot of people for a long time,” Martelli said, “it’s not about the rings, not about the nets, not about the number of wins, not about the accolades, not about what people say. When I think of my career, it’s about the memories and the relationships.

“I have a book and I have all these chapters in my book, and this will be one day that will go in that book.”

There were plenty of layers to Sunday’s homecoming for Martelli. There was his son Jimmy, an assistant on the Penn State bench. Seven grandchildren were in attendance. The family fielded dozens of ticket requests and eventually had to send requests to the secondary ticket market.

There was also a game to be played. Michigan led by 10 at halftime and crumbled in the second half. The Wolverines turned the ball over 19 times and had zero fast-break points. It was a recipe for a fourth straight defeat and a 6-9 record. Howard’s seat might be getting hot, which made the move Sunday a healthy mix of a nice gesture and awkward timing.

Martelli, who led St. Joseph’s for 24 seasons, knows the building better than most. The only things missing Sunday, he said, were open windows to combat the heat inside. It was fitting, cruelly, that the noise produced by the sold-out, pro-Penn State crowd played a big part in his team’s second-half demise. The players, he said, stopped communicating on defense.

So the buzzer sounded, and it was Jimmy who was able to celebrate a win.

“There’s no bragging rights or I have to buy ice cream at Avalon Freeze next summer,” Phil said. “I have to do that anyway. That’s in the grandfather manual.”

Both teams played Thursday night before they traveled to Philadelphia, so there was no extended homecoming.

On Saturday, managers and walk-ons went to Martelli for cheesesteak recommendations. He told them to find a neighborhood joint. He didn’t know where the best steak was in Center City near the team hotel.

“This isn’t my Philly, if you know what I mean,” he said.

» READ MORE: Phil Martelli is an acting head coach? Make that two Phil Martellis in the same role, please.

There was no family dinner Saturday night. Martelli’s wife, Judy, spent the early part of the day watching their other son, Phil Jr., coach his Bryant University team to a win at Maryland-Baltimore County. She then attended a 70th birthday dinner for a friend, so Phil had dinner at the team hotel.

Hours later, the fire alarm went off at 3:30 a.m. Sunday, Martelli said. The whole team and staff were outside on Broad Street.

“There’s a guy outside with a speaker,” Martelli said. “When I came out of the hotel, he’s hugging me. He puts me in a rap song with the players there.”

» READ MORE: How the Martellis continue to make college basketball a true family affair

Only in Philly.

There was an extended delay after the pregame huddles broke before the ball was tipped, perhaps getting synced with the television broadcast. Martelli stood on the Michigan sideline with his arms folded. He tried his best to avoid his mind wandering. He could look in each section of the building, he said, and find a face that stirred an old memory of this building, of this city.

“There was a point, maybe early, when I said, in my head, you know what, Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz is absolutely right,” Martelli said. “There is no place like home.”