Mentor, pupil square off for first time

When you coach with any kind of passion, losses are tough.

Sometimes wins are tough, too.

Thats where Chesnee’s Zach Baldinelli and Broome’s Hal McManus found themselves on Tuesday.

Baldinelli, the Eagles’ first-year head coach, was a four-year starter for McManus at Boiling Springs. He scored more than 1,000 points, was a North-South All-Star, and was coaching even while he was still playing high school ball. He won his first regular-season game on Monday with a win over R-S Central.

The opponent for his second was all too familiar. Stalking the opposite sideline was McManus, the state championship coach who mentored Baldinelli and who sparked the desire to coach.

It wasn’t easy for either. Baldinelli’s Eagles took a 78-63 win, but even getting off to a 2-0 start was bittersweet.

“It’s nice to get the win, but I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for him,” Baldinelli said of McManus. “I wouldn’t be a head coach if it wasn’t for him. I tell people all the time I have two great mentors in my life, and the first is my father and a close second is Coach McManus. I love him to death, and it hurts me having to coach against him.”

Tuesday marked the first time McManus had faced a former player as a head coach. He wasn’t any more comfortable than Baldinelli.

“It’s extremely hard,” McManus said. “I had a hard time today thinking about it, beause I love him so much. It’s just different when you look down the sideline and see somebody who you’ve watched play since seventh and eighth grade, and then he comes up and he was a starter for us for four years. It’s different from anybody else you’re going to go against. And you want his team to do so well, and you pull for them every game but two. So that was extremely hard. It’s different when you care about somebody like that when you’re looking at the other sideline.”

Aside from the emotion of the night, both also found it a little difficult deciding what to run on the court.

“We know each other so well,” McManus said. “We’re watching what they set up in and we’re trying to counter, and I call something and think ‘well, he knows exactly where the ball’s going right here, and they’ve probably worked against it’. It’s difficult.”

Baldinelli agreed.

“Literally the whole game, it was almost like looking in a mirror,” he said. “Offensively, they do the same things we do. Defensively, they follow the same principles we do. It’s really tough to execute. It almost just boils down to who makes more shots and who wants it a little bit more. It’s a tough game to scout, and it’s a tough game to prepare for, because we do the same things.”

Baldinelli doesn’t take it lightly that he’s the first McManus pupil to face his mentor.

“It’s special to be the first, especially with all the fantastic players and people he’s coached during his tenure,” Baldinelli said. “I’ll be honest with you, it gets me emotional, because he’s like another father to me. I wouldn’t be in this spot if it wasn’t for him.”

McManus is excited to watch Baldinelli have success. He just hopes the roles are reversed next week.

“Don’t make any mistake, I want to whip him when we go against him,” McManus said with a laugh. “But they outplayed us for 32 minutes and I’m proud of him and the way his team played for him tonight.”