Big 5ers and 7 Milers: Philly Coaching Greats Dunphy & Martelli Move On To Next Chapters
Fran Dunphy
In the summer of 1986, a St. Joseph’s College assistant basketball coach, not widely known outside of Philadelphia, came to Avalon for a weekend visit with his wife and two other couples. They were like thousands of other young Seven Mile weekenders, in love with the salt and the sea and the sand but lacking the scratch to do it first-class.
“Our big argument that weekend,” remembers Phil Martelli, “was whether we had enough money to add pepperoni to our pizza. I don’t remember what we decided.”
It’s a good bet that their discussion was lively. Martelli’s companions were his best friend, Geno Auriemma, who had once been his assistant at Bishop Kenrick High School in Norristown and is now arguably the greatest women’s basketball coach of all time, and Jim Foster, then the head coach at St. Joe’s. None of the three was ever known for being at a loss for words.
Fran Dunphy knew that pinching-penny game. Like Martelli, he was born in the Philadelphia area, but the shore was, figuratively at least, a long way away.
“When I was young, my family wasn’t in the socioeconomic class that allowed me to spend a lot of time down here,” says Dunphy, who at 70 is six years older than Martelli. “I came down for a few years and played in the famous Eighth Street Playground games, and grab a beer and something to eat afterward. But I still think of myself, in some ways, as a shoobie.”
He is a shoobie no more. And Martelli can afford a loaded pie without even thinking about it. Over the decades, Dunphy and Martelli became two of the nation’s most recognizable and respected names in college coaching, all without leaving the Philly area. They are also members of two distinctive subgroups: The Big Five Fraternity, and Philly Coaches Who Are Also Shore Guys.
“We take our provincial nature and transfer it to the Jersey Shore,” says Martelli, who with wife Judy finally bought a five-bedroom house in Avalon in 2011. “It’s hard to walk for a block down here without someone stopping and saying hello. It’s basically the same people we see in the winter, but we’re hunkered down then and don’t see each other as much. This is why it’s great.”
Dunphy agrees: “To be able to hang around a great place like Seven Mile Island, and still be so close to Philly, is just a wonderful opportunity.”
Close friends over the years, Dunphy and Martelli are both facing a life outside of head coaching, the former for the first time in 30 years, the latter for the first time in 24 years. Dunphy, who was the head man at Penn from 1989 to 2006 and the boss at Temple until the most recent season – combine that run with a three-year playing career at LaSalle and it’s no wonder Dunphy is known as “Mr. Big Five” – coached his final game for the Owls in the 2019 NCAA Tournament. He will continue teaching his leadership course (Management Theory and Practice) at Temple, do some promotion work under the title of “Special Assistant to the President,” and look around for broadcasting opportunities that should come for someone with a 580-325 lifetime record, nine Ivy League titles with Penn, three conference titles with Temple, and 17 NCAA Tournament berths in all.
Martelli was let go after 34 years at St. Joe’s – he was an assistant coach from 1985 to 1995 – in a move that rocked Philadelphia. But he landed on his feet and has already begun a new career as the top assistant for rookie head coach Juwan Howard at Michigan. Judy will stay in the Philly area, and Martelli will take an apartment in Ann Arbor.
“The new job will cut down on my time at the shore this summer,” says Martelli, “but I’ll be there when I can.” That will probably occur in August when all or part of the Martelli clan – he has nine grandchildren divided equally among two sons and one daughter – descends upon 20th Street.
Dunphy doesn’t have quite as close a relationship to Seven Mile as Martelli. His base at the shore is a home on 42nd Street that belonged to his late mother-in-law, Marie Carney, for whom his wife is named. (She goes by Ree.)
“We go down Memorial Day, July 4, all the big ones,” says Dunphy, who enjoys golfing at Stone Harbor Country Club and Shore Gate and relaxing at the Windrift. “Coaching always got in the way, of course, but now I don’t have that to worry about. I have a 1-year-old grandson, so that will dictate to a large extent when we come down.”
Martelli still recalls a coaching-wisdom trifecta he executed in the late summer of 1995, right after he was named the head man at St. Joe’s.
“In the same day,” says Martelli, who lists the Sea Grille and La Vecchia Fontana as two of his favorite shore spots, “I saw [St. Joe’s legend] Jack Ramsey do a clinic in Ocean City, went to Sea Isle City to visit with [former St. Joe’s and NBA coach] Jack McKinney and talked with [longtime Villanova coach] Jack Kraft in Stone Harbor.
“There has always been this very special connection between Philly basketball and the shore. And, yes, I’ll be farther away, at least in the winter months, but it will never die.”