I’m in the camp of people who feel this way about Phil Martelli:

“Phil, much respect to you. We appreciate everything you’ve done here in 30+ years. It’s time for new blood and it’s time to move in a different direction.”

Is that off-base? The days of Jameer Nelson and Delonte West are long gone, 15 years gone, to be exact. St. Joe’s has won a single NCAA tournament game since, while failing to claim a regular season Atlantic 10 title. For all of the great things Martelli did in building the Hawks’ basketball program, the results on the floor were not what they should have been over the past decade.

That’s my take as a neutral, as someone who didn’t go a Big Five school but enjoyed watching SJU hit the Elite Eight back in the day. Phil was always very good to us at CBS 3 and seemed like a straight-up and honest dude, a real down to Earth type of person. New Athletic Director Jill Bodensteiner, who took over after 350 years of Don DiJulia, could have and should have done a much better job transitioning from Martelli to whoever is the next head men’s basketball coach.

Phil went on 94 WIP with Angelo Cataldi this morning to talk about his firing, and said the following, after the jump:

On if he knew he might be fired:

“Well Angelo, I was aware, as every year, that there were critiques, that there were going to be discussions at the end of the year. I’ve always been comfortable with that and I’ve always kind of focused on, are we doing the right things on the court, are we doing the right things off of the court? Are we staying true to our foundations, our cultures? I went into the meeting on Monday knowing that there would need to be changes. None of us were happy with things, (a record of) 14-19. None of us were happy with falling short of preseason predictions, individually and collectively. So, the meeting, when it was called, was ‘we’re gonna get started, we’re gonna make the necessary changes, I will be an agent of change,’ and that we were going to go back to our roots and win our next game, win the next game we play.”

On if his firing was “cold,” (aka St. Joe’s didn’t handle it properly)

“I think I’ve had to separate it, Angelo, the decision and then the execution of the decision. I still don’t know the timing and I have purposely not seen a press release. I’ve not seen a supposed press conference or any of that. It cut out my heart. It irreparably harmed my family and I had to concentrate those areas and not on creating a bitterness and an anger that would not serve me, emotionally, psychologically, or for the future.”

On whether his overall contributions to the program and university serve as consolation:

“(long pause).. It’s a balm, a soothing balm, on a wound that I’m afraid, Angelo, will never heal. I am overwhelmed and if I was to live and at any point in time people thought I was to live or (pause) what it’s felt like Angelo is, I’ve attended my own funeral.”

This interview was actually… kind of hard to listen to. It did indeed sound like a funeral, like somebody lost their life instead of their job.

I don’t want to say that Phil sounds naive, because I don’t think that’s the right word. I think he sounds like a guy who really loved St. Joe’s and made the university and the basketball program his existence for 34 years (he also served 10 years as an assistant). So I’m not gonna sit here and rag the guy for being overly emotional about losing his job after he dedicated half of his life to Hawk Hill.

But I gotta be honest, he sounds like he’s in a bit of denial, just a little bit. I feel like I’m listening to a guy who felt like he was untouchable, like he’s just staggered by the idea that his job could ever be forfeit. When you look at the results on the floor, you find that Martelli has 166 wins, 161 losses, and is 1-4 in tournament play (NIT and NCAA) in the last ten years. His best achievements during that time frame were the pair of A10 tournament championships in 2014 and 2016, when the Hawks took out VCU on two separate occasions.

When you add all of that together, is it enough for a guy to keep his job after 24 years at the helm? How much do you weigh on-court results versus the overall health of the program, graduation rates, and other off-court measures that define what St. Joe’s is all about?

Personal opinion, I think Bodensteiner made the right move but handled it incredibly poorly. And Phil Martelli will eventually pull himself out of this postpartum melancholy, this “woe is me” routine, he’ll be honored properly by the university and the greater Philadelphia sports community, and he’ll get himself an interesting new job somewhere else. He’s not the first person to be fired.

Here’s the full interview: