Chris Mullin’s victorious coaching debut was emotional from start to finish.
The St. John’s legend and Brooklyn native told his wife he had the jitters ahead of his first regular season game as the school’s men’s basketball coach on Nov. 13, but she gave him no sympathy, he said.
“She was like, ‘You dragged us into this, now go do your thing,’ ” Mullin said. “She said, ‘I don’t want to hear it.’ ”
But when he got to Carnesecca Arena, he got a different kind of encouragement — cheers from fans arriving early to a game that would eventually play out in front of 4,677 spectators. And cheers gave way to roars when the final buzzer sounded on Red Storm’s 66–57 victory over Wagner in its season opener, the first real game of the Mullin era.
The thrill of victory quickly transformed into pride and reflection as he walked into the stands greet his former coach, legendary St. John’s headman Lou Carnesecca — a man Mullin had been looking to throughout the game. Coach Mullin sat on the very same bench 30 years prior when Carnesecca coached him, and his voice cracked with emotion as he explained what the brief postgame moment they shared meant to him.
Carnesecca — in typical fashion — made light of the situation and joked that Mullin still looked sharp, though he’ll surely face game nights so harried that his shirt rumples and his tie comes undone, Mullin recounted. Carnesecca gave Mullin a thumbs-up as the prodigy kissed his mentor’s ring in reverence before heading back to the locker room.
“The guy has had such an influence of my life,” Mullin said. “It’s just a blessing to have him there. Just like he did when I was 10 years old, he is still guiding me.”
But Mullin’s ascension to helm the Red Storm’s program hasn’t been a complete fairy tale.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association ruled freshman guard Marcus LoVett a partial academic qualifier, rendering him unable to play this season. And the body indefinitely sidelined senior guard Felix Balamou for an unspecified rule violation an hour before the Nov. 13 game started. St. John’s also lost its pre-season opener by 32 points to Division II team St. Thomas Aquinas.
But none of that could spoil the first night that truly mattered. The season could be a struggle for St. John’s, which has just two returning players in uniform. But for one night the team members were winners and, once again, so was Mullin.
This could be the first of many wins for a Mullin-led squad — and players hope to prove that true.
“It feels good to get coach’s first win,” senior guard Durand Johnson said. “We talk about every day coming in and getting better, and we are a family, and we laid one brick today.”
