Vito Montelli
St. Joseph High school
Impact Statement
Montelli led St. Joseph to 878 wins and 11 State Championships over his 50 year career. He is the most winning coach in New England’s basketball history.
Biography
The state’s all-time leading winner with a record of 853-329 (a .722 winning percentage), Montelli, 78, the only basketball coach St. Joseph has ever had, completed his 49th season with a record 10th state title. With a 79-53 victory over Fairfield College Preparatory School in the Class LL title game, Montelli’s Cadets (23-3) became the only Connecticut team to win state titles in all four classifications.
He previously coached St. Joseph to five titles in Class L and two each in Class M and Class S. St. Joseph previously won titles in 1975, 1977, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1992, 1993, 1996 and 2001, and have advanced to 16 state title games. That included 10 appearances in a 13-year span from 1985-1997.
In 1992, Montelli was named National Coach of the Year by the National High School Athletic Coaches Association, and in 1995, he was inducted into the Connecticut High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame. In 1998, he received the Gold Key Award when he was inducted into the Connecticut Hall of Fame by the Connecticut Sports Writers Alliance.
In 2002, Montelli received the Frank Maguire Foundation Award from the New York Athletic Club. He was inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003. He has had 25 players receive McDonald’s All-American recognition, and he coached the East squad in the McDonald’s All-American Game in 1990. He was featured in the Faces in the Crowd section of Sports Illustrated magazine in April.
Montelli coached for an addition year after being honored, retiring after his 50th season and 11th State Championship in 2012. He boasts 878 career victories, the most in all of New England’s history. In 2013, Montelli was presented with the Morgan Wooten Lifetime Achievement Award.
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