City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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It didn’t take David Duda Jr. long to know what he wanted to do for his career. Perhaps not surprisingly — after all, it was all he knew from a young age. 

The Norristown native grew up around basketball, the son of longtime St. Joe’s assistant David Duda Sr. spending countless hours at Hagan Arena through his formative years. He saw how his dad worked with Phil Martelli for 13 seasons, from the time he was too young for elementary school until his senior year at Methacton, a basketball-obsessed kid who was in the perfect spot to soak as much up as he could.

“When he was young, he would put on a suit and tie and act like he was Phil on the sidelines,” said David Duda Sr., now the director of athletics at Delaware Valley College. “One of the things he’d always be able to do as a young kid [...] he could tell you every stat of every team. And then you’d ask him about algebra and he’d be like ‘eh, I don’t really know that.’”

“Coach Martelli was the best because he was so accessible,” the younger Duda recalled. “After games he would let me run around Hagan, shoot, go see his press conference. He was just the best, and I had such a great experience through my dad’s coaching career, that when it came time to high school, college, thinking about what you want to do, I thought about different professions — but to be honest with you, I always circled all the way back to basketball and coaching, it’s been in my life since I’ve been born. 

“It’s the only thing I circled back to.”

Now Duda gets to start his own college coaching career, the East Stroudsburg grad accepting a position to join Mike Rhoades’ new staff at Penn State as a graduate assistant. He’ll head up to Happy Valley in just a few weeks for the beginning of summer session, less than a month after packing up his ESU apartment for the last time. 

He’s hoping it’s the first step on a journey that will take him further and further up the bench, and he’s starting in a great spot.

“It’s a really cool feeling,” David Duda Jr. said. “And to have my dad be a part of it too is even better for me. 

“It feels like a full-circle moment. I grew up all my life watching him and striving to be him, striving to be a college coach like he was. He’s out of coaching and now that I’m starting, it’s full-circle because he’s going to be able to watch me pursue my dreams.”

The younger Duda swears he’s known he wanted it to be a coach since those childhood years, though his father said it was more of the “make-believe” kind, too young to really understand what he was talking about. But both agree that it was during David Jr.’s first couple years at Methacton, once he made Jeff Derstine’s varsity squad as a sophomore, that he really started to understand what it meant to be a coach full-time. 

Coaching was something Duda Sr. did for nearly 25 years, starting at Delaware Valley (1996-98), then on to Widener for eight seasons, where he also served as the school’s AD in addition to his coaching duties. He was on Hawk Hill from 2006-19, serving as one of Martelli’s trusted coaches and advisors, part of three Atlantic 10 championships and NCAA Tournament appearances.

Recruiting trips with his dad, going to local schools to see the city’s top prospects, showed David Jr. that side of the business; visiting practice showed him others. Other aspects, he didn’t have to see to understand. 

“I’d go on a trip with him and watch how he does things, watch how he talks to parents,” Duda Jr. recalled. “I really started to ask him and take note of the lifestyle that it is — and it’s tough, it’s long, long hours, but it was really rewarding for us when you saw the success on the court and off the court for the guys.”

He went off to play at East Stroudsburg, a Division II program located in the northeast part of the state. Playing in the high-level Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC), the left-handed 6-3 Duda was never a full-time starter for a deep program but had his best season as a senior, averaging 6.0 ppg on 48-of-98 (49.0%) from 3-point range in 14.2 mpg.

At ESU, Duda Jr. got to not just learn from but play for another long-time successful coach, Jeff Wilson, who’s won more than 350 games in 20 seasons. While there were stylistic differences between the two — notably, Wilson’s high-octane full-court press system, his Warriors’ calling card — Duda Jr. noted one key similarity between his college program and the one he’d grown up immersed in.

“Martelli always had a family atmosphere — wherever you went at St. Joe’s, everybody was a family, from the athletic department to the athletic trainers, staff, everybody,” he said. “(Wilson) does that too — if you come to this program, you’re in the Warrior family, and I thought that was pretty special. 

“I don’t know if I bought it in the beginning, freshman year, but they have these alumni days, guys come back for homecoming and it’s a big turnout, you can see the loyalty and the pride from playing for East Stroudsburg. Playing for him, that was something that was really similar to the family that coach Martelli had built at St. Joe’s.”

It was in January, the younger Duda said, that he started thinking seriously about his next stop, knowing he wasn’t going to utilize his extra year of COVID eligibility, ready to get his undergraduate degree and get into coaching. He connected with one of Phil’s sons, Jimmy Martelli, who was then in operations at VCU under Rhoades; the plan originally was to get into VCU’s grad program in sports leadership.

Then the rumors started to fly: Penn State’s coach, Micah Shrewsberry, had left for Notre Dame after two successful years, and Rhoads — a central Pennsylvania native and former Lebanon Valley standout — was on the short list of coaches to replace him.

Duda Jr. wasn’t in the inner circle, didn’t have any knowledge of what was going on beyond what was on social media.

“You open Twitter and you see these Tweets and rumors [...] there were a few days where I had no idea what was going to happen, if he’s going to take it or not,” he said. “I want to say it was Sunday night or Monday night of that week that he took it [...] Jimmy just reassured me, ‘if you want to come to Penn State with us, we’ll take care of you.’ I was so lucky and blessed that they wanted to take care of a kid, I mean it’s a GA spot, you can fill that (easily) with Penn State being that big of a college. They took care of me and I’m really appreciative of it.”

Duda Jr. gets up to Penn State on June 1, in time to help a mostly-new Penn State roster get acclimated to Happy Valley and a new coaching staff, all while getting adjusted to his new role and lifestyle, with his own one-bedroom off-campus apartment, getting ready for his master’s program in higher education.

For the next two years he’ll be responsible for helping Rhoades build his program from the inside, doing everything from helping break down practice footage or opponents’ game tape, running errands around the office, helping get things ready for recruiting visits and much more.

“My biggest advice to him was, Dave you have to be a sponge, and a quiet sponge,” David Duda Sr. said. “You ask them to be part of every meeting and you don’t open your mouth. Be a sponge, keep a journal of decisions that were made in the program…did it work, why did it work, and what are your thoughts on it? [...] That’s how you grow as a young coach and I think he’ll take that advice because he understands it, and he’s going with people that will allow him to do that and allow him to grow with the position.”

The younger Duda said he’ll be doing all of that, but he’s most excited to get back in the gym, working on skill development with the new Nittany Lions roster.

“I’m expecting a lot of rebounds this summer,” he laughed.