Neumann Goretti’s Carl Arrigale sells washing machines. He’s also one of Philly’s greatest hoops coaches.

The storefront on 8th Street is where Carl Arrigale went each summer to earn extra money while in high school at Penn Charter. He helped with deliveries, stood behind the counter, and did whatever else was needed at his grandfather’s South Philadelphia appliance store before basketball season started.

He came back to the shop — a few blocks from the Italian Market — after college when his mother, Marlene, was diagnosed with cancer. Working at the store, Arrigale figured, ensured his mother could still be there during the day so he could assist her and also distract her from the disease that would claim her life five years later.

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It was never his plan to own the store filled with refrigerators, dishwashers, and range hoods on the corner of 8th and Passyunk. But neither was becoming one of Philadelphia’s all-time high-school basketball coaches. It just kind of happened.

He grew up at 29th and McKean, was married at St. Gabriel’s, raised his family a 10-minute walk from the stadiums, and now coaches the high-school basketball team that defines South Philadelphia just as much as he does. Arrigale — besides his four years attending Lycoming College in Williamsport — never found a reason to leave the neighborhood that raised him. And South Philadelphia has treated him just fine.

Arrigale will try Monday at the Palestra to win his 13th Catholic League boys’ title when his Neumann Goretti squad takes on Roman Catholic. He has reached the final in 18 of his 25 seasons as head coach and has the most championships in league history. In a city rich in high school hoops, Arrigale is at the front of the pack. Not bad for a guy from the neighborhood.

“We’re entrenched,” Arrigale said of South Philly. “Hopefully, we’ve made an imprint.”

Arrigale’s time at Neumann started with a beer at Dean’s Bar, a hole-in-the-wall at 29th and Tasker. Mike Doyle, just hired as the school’s head coach, wanted Arrigale to join his staff, so they met in Grays Ferry after a men’s league game.

He knew the neighborhood and had thought about coaching high school hoops ever since playing for Speedy Morris at Penn Charter. His mom told him they would take care of the store while he coached. Arrigale was in.

Doyle spent just a season at Neumann and the next coach — Tom Dougherty — lasted only three. Arrigale was ready and applied for the job. A night before the final interview, athletic director Ed “Bubby” DiCamillo called to tell him that the other finalist had accepted the Archbishop Carroll job. DiCamillo had been pulling for Arrigale behind the scenes.

“Don’t mess this up,” DiCamillo said.

Arrigale was hired in 1999 and Neumann finished his first season in second place before falling in the playoffs. His second season ended with a three-point loss to Eddie Griffin’s nationally ranked Roman team, but the Pirates felt good heading into Season 3.

Cantrell Fletcher — one of the league’s best players — tore an ACL at the start of the quarterfinals and his backup — freshman Tabby Cunningham — had skipped practice the day before, resulting in a benching. Beatty Taylor, now one of Arrigale’s assistants, pleaded with the coach to play Cunningham. The coach stuck to his principles. They survived, and Arrigale — the coach who goes to Mass every Sunday and coached last week with ashes on his forehead when a playoff game fell on the first day of Lent — told Taylor that Cunningham “served his penance.”

Six days later, Cunningham was the best player on the court when Neumann edged Roman by a point and finally broke through for Arrigale’s first Catholic League title. Most importantly, Cunningham was at practice the day before. Arrigale won his first league title and also set the foundation for his program.

“That’s when it started to get rolling,” Arrigale said. “People started to take notice.”

Arrigale was a fifth grader at King of Peace on 26th and Reed when Dom Giordano put him on the seventh- and eighth-grade team. Giordano didn’t intend to play Arrigale much but he knew it would be good for him to hang with the older kids as the school did not have a JV squad.

“I was taught the value of practice, repetition at a young age,” Arrigale said. “I was 10 years old, practicing five nights a week with a game on the weekends.”

A few years later, Giordano provided Arrigale with a taste of coaching when he asked the seventh and eighth graders to coach the kids in the younger grades. Arrigale and his buddies met for a draft and assembled the squads of first through fourth graders who played touch football and T-ball every Sunday after the 10 a.m. Mass. They even got paid.

“The older guys got to stay and clean up and split up the money they made from selling the doughnuts after Mass,” Arrigale said. “You’d get like 10 or 15 bucks and back then in the ‘70s, you had money in your pocket for the week. The whole process of growing up kind of gave me this coaching bug. It was always in me.”

His influences continued in high school when he sat in Morris’ Roxborough living room — “the same chair he still has today,” Arrigale said — and felt the connection that a coach could make with his players. Morris, who had more than 1,000 wins as a high school and college coach, was Penn Charter’s coach for Arrigale’s final two seasons.

“The impact he had on me was probably what probably pushed me into the high school coaching thing,” Arrigale said. “The two years I had with him, I just enjoyed them and the family atmosphere he created around the team and the way we felt for each other.”

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“I thought that if I ever had the opportunity, if I could just have one kid feel the way that I felt, then I would be successful. Hopefully, I’ve done that.”

Arrigale was on the porch with his dad in North Wildwood a few years ago when he said he was thinking about stepping away. Everything had seemed to change since he sat at Dean’s Bar. The pressure to win every year, the rise of social media, and the constant changes in the administration had worn down the guy from South Philly.

Arrigale proved he could move with change — “Adaptability,” he said is his best trait — as he was then the owner of 10 Catholic League championships and won them in a variety of ways with a variety of lineups. The shirt and tie he wore for the first title were swapped out for a tracksuit. He even eased up on his strict practice time, giving players a few-minute buffer to arrive.

“Tyreek Duren, one of the best guys who ever played for us, he was on 11th Street all the time,” said Arrigale as the street leads to the school’s gym. “‘Coach, I’m on 11th Street.’ I’m like 11th Street is the new Broad Street. It’s the longest street in the city. ‘I’m on 11th Street. I’ll be right there.’ He gave me zero trouble and was a great teammate. Am I going to kill him for five minutes?”

But this felt like time. Maybe he could just go to a game at the Palestra and watch as a fan or have something else to talk about than basketball when he runs into old friends down the Shore.

“I have a family. I love the Phillies. I love the Eagles. But they want to ask about this,” Arrigale said. “I think half the people probably don’t even really care but they don’t know what else to ask me. Meanwhile, I want to know if this Noah Song guy is going to make the team. That’s how big I’m into the Phillies. I can hear the stadiums from my house. It killed me to see the Eagles blow the game. I was at [the Sixers’] Game 7 against the Hawks when Ben Simmons didn’t dunk and we walked home from the game not believing that we watched them get eliminated on their home floor against a team they were better than.”

His dad told him he couldn’t leave. Why? You have to win the 11th title, he said, and have the record on your own. Arrigale said that didn’t matter. He was already tied with Roman’s Dennis Seddon for the most. The dad told his son that he needed it by himself.

“I said ‘Dad, then I’m coaching for the wrong reasons. I’m just coaching to chase that down,’” Arrigale said. “He said ‘No, you can’t stop until you get the title.’”

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In 2020, the effects of his father’s lung cancer re-emerged just before Arrigale was set to play for that 11th title. They won that night and his father died two months later. Before the funeral, Arrigale had to go to North Wildwood to grab some documents and other things from his dad’s place.

“We walk in the house and the Daily News is out with the article about us winning,” Arrigale said. “I’m like ‘Now, it’s OK if I want to stop.’”

Arrigale, just like most high school coaches, is beat by the end of each season. But then he finds a way to gear up for another year. There’s always a new challenge to meet or a talented guard to coach or a kid he just wants to see graduate. Every time he thinks he’s out, the guy from South Philly gets pulled back in.

“I’m older. I’m not 30 anymore. I’m 56 and I get cranky this time of year,” Arrigale said. “What am I doing? I’m losing money doing this because what they pay you and what you put out doesn’t match up. But I’ve never done it for the money. It’s about helping kids. Deep down, I do love it.”

Scoop Jardine, who won two Catholic League titles with Arrigale before playing at Syracuse, said he considered his coach like a father figure. He played for Jim Boeheim and against Mike Krzyzewski and said Arrigale’s basketball mind is just as sharp. When it comes to Philly hoops, Jardine said his old coach belongs in the conversation with luminaries like John Chaney and Bill Ellerbee.

But it wasn’t the X’s-and-O’s that made Arrigale special. Jardine’s buddies thought Arrigale was a cop when he pulled into their predominantly Black neighborhood to pick him up for practice. No, Jardine said, Arrigale was just a “South Philly kid” like him and his teammates.

“He wanted to see us thrive,” Jardine said.

A group of alumni — about 40 of the kids Arrigale just wanted to see thrive — returned to the school’s gym recently and the coach stood back, watching them argue about who had the better team. Some of the players had graduated 20 years ago. Some were fresh out of school.

“You see that and say, ‘Wow. This really did mean something to these guys. They all love each other,’” Arrigale said.

It was another reminder of why he does it. Arrigale will receive another one on Monday night when the Palestra fills up and the old building buzzes. His old high school coach will be there and Morris’s wife will call him before the game to wish him luck, more reminders of how the games mean so much to so many.

First, the uniforms needed to be washed. So Arrigale left C&D Appliances on Friday afternoon and headed to Neumann Goretti. The coach washed the white shorts and jerseys the Saints wore in their semifinal win, making sure they were ready for the big game. The glory of coaching high school hoops. And the washing machine? Of course, it came from the old shop on 8th Street.

“I want the kids to have things that they’ll talk about forever,” Arrigale said. “The thing about the championships is that they will never go away. You’re a champ forever and that’s an experience with that group of guys that you take forever. We talk about making memories and positive experiences. Those individual awards? They stop talking about them a week after they come out. But champions are always remembered.”

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