Rich is Sachem’s winningest hoops coach and only coach to win a boys basketball county title
For 19 years Steve Rich led Sachem boys basketball to its most dominant run, winning a program-record 257 games and the program’s only Suffolk County championship. The Sachem Athletic Hall of Famer died Thursday, May 7 in Venice, Florida after battling cancer. He was 78.
Hired to teach physical education at Sachem in 1965, Rich, a native of Houlton, Maine, was one of the very influential coaches to help put the Flaming Arrows on the map.
Originally positioned at Waverly Avenue Elementary School and Sagamore Junior High School he coached soccer, basketball and baseball. In 1970 he moved to Sachem High School and coached both JV basketball and baseball and was given the varsity basketball gig after Tim Clouser stepped down.
“His teams were extremely well prepared,” said Tom Sabatelle, Sachem’s Athletic Director at the time, and an inductee of the Sachem Athletic Hall of Fame. “His keen insight into the nuances of sport were unparalleled. A true teacher and a true leader, a stalwart member of the Sachem coaching staff.”
Rich was the varsity coach from 1978 through 1997 and aside from a 257-125-19 record, won nine league titles, and was named League I Coach of the Year five times, and Suffolk County and Long Island Coach of the Year once, respectively.
His 1980-81 and 1995-96 teams are the only two in Sachem history to reach the 20-win plateau. It was the 1995-96 group that went down as Sachem’s best, having won the district’s only boys basketball county title.
Sachem’s boys basketball coaching fraternity runs deep. With names like Dom Savino, Mike Atkinson, Matt Brisson, John Finta and Bill Morano there are countless stories and words of wisdom to share, and they did often while together during lunch breaks.
“We would get together everyday to eat lunch and discuss all things teaching, coaching, sports, politics and the Sachem news of the day,” said Atkinson, who coached both the girls and boys programs at Sachem and is also an inductee of the Sachem Athletic Hall of Fame. “I learned a tremendous amount from Steve and Dom and always appreciated them opening their office to us.”
“Those lunch periods might have been one of the best coaching experiences I ever had,” said Finta. “I learned so much every day.”
Rich hired Savino, another Sachem Athletic Hall of Famer, as his JV coach in 1978 and was later his varsity assistant in 1982 and eventually took the reins as varsity head coach from 1997-2005.
“I’ll always be thankful for Steve giving me that opportunity and helping me begin my own journey in basketball,” said Savino. “He only wanted what was best for Sachem basketball and gave his all to his players, his program and the school. Steve always defended everything Sachem. The Sachem community has lost another pillar.”
Brisson, also a Sachem Athletic Hall of Famer, went on to become one of the district’s winningest girls hoops coaches. Uniquely, he said his coaching career began thanks to a friendly conversation with Rich in the men’s room at his father’s retirement party. Bernard Brisson was a superintendent in Sachem.
“He offered me a life changing opportunity to coach,” said Brisson. “I didn’t realize at the time that it would be a life line that would sustain me through some very tough times. Thank you very much for all of the lessons that followed that day. Thank you for your class, poise and dignity. Congratulations for a life very well played. I thank God for the good fortune that coach Rich opened up for me.”
Atkinson, who also credits Rich as a friend, mentor and role model, recalls many trips to coaching clinics in Boston or to Villanova’s summer camp to learn from Rollie Massimino.
“Rich was part of a tremendous era in the history of Sachem,” he said. “A whole crew of Sachem greats were hired in the late-sixties, early-seventies. They were a huge part of the growth and maturity of one of our country’s great public high schools. I was lucky and privileged enough to be hired and got to learn from the best.”
Those 1990s teams were something special and produced some unique figures in the Sachem community. One was Matt “Dezy” DiStefano, a star on that team, who also passed away this year. In 2017 he was inducted to the Sachem Athletic Hall of Fame along with Rich. After Sachem won the county title in 1996, Dezy asked Rich what he was doing to celebrate.
“Going to have a burger and beer with the old lady,” Rich said proudly.
“It was the classic line that we always remembered,” said Jimmy Mellor, a player on that team and the current Sachem North girls varsity hoops coach.
Another player on that team was Kevin Tougher, who looked up to Rich once he started attending summer hoops camps as a kid and hoped one day to be on varsity. As he got older he was eventually a counselor at those camps.
“I was nervous to start my first camp as a counselor, and coach Rich sat with me to talk through it, and ultimately assigned me to work with the younger campers – elementary school age – because he thought my personality would be a good fit with that age group,” said Tougher. “I found it incredibly rewarding, and I’m convinced that positive experience is what initially spurred my interest in teaching elementary school.”
Tougher is now the principal at Waverly Avenue Elementary, where Rich started his Sachem teaching career.
Jeff Ruland, Sachem’s greatest basketball talent, who played in the NBA, played for Rich on JV. He recalls the talk Rich gave him before a big game against undefeated North Babylon, one of the top teams in the state in the late 1970s. Sachem won and it was the only loss the Bulldogs had that year.
“He told us we would win the game, I was the best player in America and to go show them,” said Ruland. “He is one of the most positive people I have ever been around.”
Tom Mullee, a more recent Sachem basketball coach, only had the pleasure of meeting Rich one time, during the 20th anniversary of the 1995-96 championship team.
“He congratulated me on being a Sachem varsity coach and said, ‘you know it’s a small fraternity’.”
A fraternity cultivated by Rich that lives on like his legacy.
As a physical education teacher he was very instrumental in the introduction of Project Adventure to the curriculum, an effort that has benefited tens of thousands of students and teachers.
“We taught together, coached together, played golf together, hunted together and raised our young families together,” said Sabatelle. “ I’m sure sometime in the future we will reminisce about all our adventures together. I will miss him.”
He is survived by his children Meg (Howie) and Steve Jr. (Shelly) and grandchildren Molly, Ryan, Casey, Kaleb and Carson. He was married to his wife Judy for 46 years and was remarried in 2019 to Melissa.
Messages of condolence for the family can be sent to: Meg Rothenberg, 83 Caramel Rd., Commack, New York 11725. Donations may be made in his honor to the Dezy Strong Foundation or The American Cancer Society.
-Words by Chris R. Vaccaro
