When cooking for a college basketball team, the same one you coach, you develop a few culinary staples. They鈥檙e the sort of things that appeal to most palates and can be prepared in large quantities.
Rob Summers and Joe Mazzulla leaned on spaghetti, tacos, hamburgers and hot dogs.
鈥淪ometimes it was OK,鈥 Mazzulla said, laughing.
鈥淲别 fed those guys,鈥 Summers added.
Cooking was part of the job for them at NCAA Division II Glenville State, where they were both assistant coaches from 2011-2013. So was stocking the arena concession stand with Skittles and popcorn and driving the team to road games.
Talking in Mazzulla鈥檚 New England home a few weeks ago, the coaches got around to reminiscing about that fledging stage of their careers, which was barely more than a decade ago but so vastly different from their current statures.
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Summers, 40, joined the Missouri coaching staff in the spring, reuniting with head coach Dennis Gates after they鈥檇 teamed up for a time at Cleveland State. Summers is the Tigers鈥 new offensive coordinator and works closely with frontcourt players.
Mazzulla, 36, won an NBA title this summer with the Boston Celtics, the youngest coach since 1970 to do so.
They鈥檙e friends 鈥 close friends 鈥 who share values and basketball philosophies that date back to their playing days at West Virginia. With Summers鈥 input, Mizzou鈥檚 style of play is likely to look a little more like the Celtics鈥. And Mazzulla is all ears for MU-inspired ideas.
But back to the memories.
鈥淲别 always venture off to the things like, man, it鈥檚 just crazy how far we鈥檝e come,鈥 Summers said.
鈥淢an, you鈥檙e an NBA champion,鈥 he told Mazzulla recently. 鈥淢e being at Mizzou, being at the SEC, close to the NBA 鈥 dude, we started at Glenville.鈥
鈥淚 tell everybody, to this day, that鈥檚 the best decision we ever made,鈥 Mazzulla responded.
鈥楾he grassroots of just coaching basketball鈥
Glenville is a small town tucked into the hills of West Virginia. The wooded banks of the Little Kanawha River, which extend into the Ohio River, hug its southern edge. Main Street is a combination of crisscrossing power lines and mismatched brick buildings. Barely more than 1,000 people live there, though another 1,500 are students at Glenville State University.
鈥淚t was a close-knit community,鈥 Summers said. 鈥淭hey love their Glenville State athletics.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 a small-town place,鈥 Mazzulla told the Post-Dispatch. 鈥淏eing in West Virginia for as long as we were, we kind of were comfortable with it. We had groups of people there. It鈥檚 small, it鈥檚 unique, but there鈥檚 people that are passionate about their sports, they鈥檙e passionate about their community, so it was good to be a part of.鈥
Glenville lies an hour and a half southwest of West Virginia University, where Summers and Mazzulla played together during the 2006-2007 season.
A freshman point guard from Rhode Island, Mazzulla played just under nine minutes per game that season. Summers, in his fifth year of college basketball after sitting out a season following a transfer from Penn State, was West Virginia鈥檚 starting center. The Mountaineers won the NIT that year, which was coach John Beilein鈥檚 last at the helm of the program.
Despite nearly a foot of difference in their heights and a few years of separation, Summers and Mazzulla hit it off at the start of that season.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know (why),鈥 Mazzulla said, 鈥渂ut what I respected about him was that he held us accountable as underclassmen and freshmen but he never treated us any different. That says a lot about him: He didn鈥檛 care about age or grade or anything like that. He just had a respect for people and wanted to build great relationships.鈥
Both were adamant that they wanted to chase playing careers in the sport.
鈥淚 never thought I鈥檇 be a coach,鈥 Summers said. 鈥淚 know that (Mazzulla) comes from a family of coaches. 鈥 I think he always knew he wanted to coach.鈥
Mmmm 鈥 maybe not.
鈥淣o, not really,鈥 Mazzulla said. 鈥淣ever really thought about it at all.鈥
Summers joined the Glenville State staff just before Mazzulla did, putting in the call to get his friend a spot as an assistant coach, too.
Working with the Pioneers was an adjustment on multiple fronts. They had to plan the practices, not participate in them. They didn鈥檛 have the resources they鈥檇 grown used to during their own college careers.
鈥淚t humbled us enough,鈥 Summers said, 鈥渃oming from a high-major program like West Virginia that鈥檚 such a big program in the state to being (the) low man on the totem pole and somebody who had to really grind their way up the coaching ladder.鈥
鈥淭hat was the good development for us, coming out of playing into coaching, just figuring out how to meet the guys where they鈥檙e at,鈥 Mazzulla said. 鈥淕oing from playing to coaching, your communication styles are different when you play as when you coach, so that process of learning how to build relationships with the guys and communicate with them was a fun thing to go through them together.鈥
There wasn鈥檛 always much to do away from the court. At one point, Mazzulla and Summers bought baseball gloves to play catch, 鈥渢rying to figure out something to do outside of watching film,鈥 the latter said
Mazzulla took a liking to Glenville and remembers the restaurant scene fondly. He met his wife at the school 鈥 she was a volleyball coach.
The Pioneers improved from 5-21 before Summers and Mazzulla joined the program to 8-19 and 13-16 with both on the staff.
Each coach stuck around the DII Mountain East Conference after they moved on from Glenville State. Summers鈥 first head coaching gig was at Urbana University, which closed in 2020; Mazzulla鈥檚 head coaching shot came at Fairmont State.
Summers jumped up to James Madison, then joined Gates鈥 staff at Cleveland State. When MU hired Gates, Summers migrated to Miami (Ohio) before his recent move to Missouri.
Mazzulla was hired by Boston as an assistant in 2019. When the Celtics suspended their coach days before the start of training camp in 2022, they named Mazzulla the interim and eventually removed that tag from him.
Summers regularly flies east to stay with Mazzulla, often observing parts of the Celtics鈥 training camp 鈥渏ust to learn what stuff they鈥檙e doing new, but also just to show them what we鈥檝e been doing new and talk,鈥 the Mizzou assistant said.
The duo has gone on coaching retreats together and corresponded through texted pictures of sets drawn on napkins. There鈥檚 a definite synergy to what they design.
鈥淲别 play similar styles, everywhere he鈥檚 been and everywhere I鈥檝e been, being from the same tree, having the same kind of mindset when it comes to offense,鈥 Summers said. 鈥淲别 don鈥檛 have such different viewpoints from how to run stuff offensively.鈥
Sharing ideas with Mazzulla has given Summers some immediate credibility in Columbia. A testimonial from the Celtics coach appeared in Missouri鈥檚 news release announcing Summers鈥 hire, and Boston鈥檚 NBA Finals victory sure didn鈥檛 do anything to undermine the addition鈥檚 credibility within the MU locker room.
鈥淲hat they鈥檝e done with the Celtics, it makes the value I bring even better because I鈥檓 already doing it,鈥 Summers joked. 鈥淣ow they win the championship, so I鈥檓 like 鈥極h, we鈥檙e gonna play like the Celtics.鈥 They鈥檙e like, 鈥極h, we鈥檙e gonna play like them? They won a championship, let鈥檚 do that.鈥 鈥
Though their players might not be aware of it, the principles both coaches preach on the court and in the locker room date back to a Division II school in West Virginia.
鈥淭hose two years at Glenville really prepared us for where we鈥檙e at now,鈥 Summers said. 鈥淲别 were able to not focus as much on the resources and the nice things you have 鈥 it was the grassroots of just coaching basketball.鈥
The roots of the friendship between Summers and Mazzulla lie in those Appalachian hills, too.
鈥淵ou just share a lot together,鈥 Mazzulla said. 鈥淥ur faith is important, our marriage is important, our kids are important, basketball is important. The top priorities in our life are aligned, and it鈥檚 easy for us to grow in that together.鈥
Now finding success in the game, they have cooking experience and a small-town gig to thank.
鈥淚t鈥檚 something that no one can ever take away from us,鈥 Summers said.