Ad Disclosure
Phil Martelli Has Been Sharing Wisdom on Instagram Stories, and it’s a Real Treat
By Matt Schultz
Published:
Throughout any given day, it’s nice to have a few small treats lined up in your schedule that you know will dependably bring a small moment of joy. A peanut butter RXBAR. A second cup of coffee. Eating four hardboiled eggs and listening to the Bill Simmons podcast. These are merely a few of my bread and butter go-tos, a couple checkpoints in the day where, even amid the stress and demands of life, things are quite pleasant.
Today, I’m proud to announce that I’ve added a new small treat to this list: regularly checking in on Phil Martelli’s Instagram Stories:
If you don’t follow Phil on Instagram, you probably don’t know that over the last couple months, the legendary Saint Joe’s coach has been using his Stories to post small tidbits of wisdom like this:
It’s true! This is a good point! You should do this! And guess what? There’s tons more where that came from! I’ve been taking screenshots of them for quite some time! You’re probably wondering why I did this. The answer, and I’m sorry if this disappoints you, is simply: I don’t know. Wasn’t even a thought. Just felt right. But now look how it paid off! I got tons and tons of Phil wisdom here at my disposal! Like this one:
Greatness in all caps! I believe! Getting me hyped to blog! I will make this blog great!
If I try to investigate and understand what it is exactly about these posts that I love so much, two reasons come to mind: The first is: I appreciate the effort Phil is putting in here. It would be easy for Phil to just Google “wise quotes to make me sound like a wise elder statesman,” and copy and paste whatever he finds into his Story. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening here! These feel original! If not the sentiments themselves, then the wording of them, at the very least! –
The second reason I think I enjoy these posts so much: Phil is the nicest guy ever, and this stuff coming from him makes the whole thing work. If these Stories were coming from a guy who was a notorious d-bag, they wouldn’t register at all. It’d be phony as hell, and probably pretty annoying. But the exact opposite is going on here. It’s Phil’s cool-guy-ness that makes these IG stories something to appreciate.
(Some context: I was a sports editor of the school paper when I went to Saint Joe’s, which meant I got to cover the men’s basketball team and interview Phil sometimes. And he’s the nicest guy ever! One time I was interviewing him on the phone, and I was nervously stumbling through some dumbass question that didn’t matter, and I wasn’t getting the wording right, and I muttered something like, “Just one more question here, Phil, I don’t wanna waste too much of your time.” And he cut me off and sternly said, “Hey. This is not a waste of my time.” What a nice guy! Way nicer than he had to be to 19-year-old me! I almost certainly was wasting his time!)
I’m trying! I will! In fact, in the spirit of the above wise quote from Phil, I’m going to free myself from the self-imposed limitation of the Blog Format. My gut says I’m supposed to say something about every single screenshot I have for the rest of this article — but that’s a self-imposed prison! According to Phil, I should unshackle myself from this burden! And I will, right now!
Feel free to enjoy the rest of these screenshots without my commentary, and go follow Phil on Instagram for more of his truly nice insights. Thank you. Goodbye.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…)