Old School Coach

Former Wildwood Catholic Basketball Star Anthony Raffa Adapting to His New Role There

Anthony Raffa in his first year coaching the Wildwood Catholic Academy boys’ basketball team.

Anthony Raffa grows into his newest, perhaps most challenging, professional role.

A career change induced by COVID-19 brings a different basketball vibe to the Sea Isle City native. This adjustment from a stalwart Wildwood Catholic, Coastal Carolina University and European professional player to the coach of his high school alma mater was a drastic pivot.

Two years after being forced stateside because of the pandemic, Raffa has morphed into a new realm. He has one season under his belt as a coach on the same floor in which he excelled as a player. Wildwood Catholic Academy was 10-13 his first season in what had been forecast as a rebuilding year.

“What you learn is that coaching is not like playing, I can tell you that,” Raffa says with a laugh. “You find out that you are dealing with different egos and personalities. You have to pick the right time to get on a player, the right times to ease off.

“The biggest adjustment for me was probably watching the pressure of the game, being involved in the game but not being able to go in there.”

Switching from a player to a coach is not easy for a premier athlete. That’s what Raffa had been for at least a decade-and-a-half.

He was one of the best players in Wildwood Catholic history, which says a lot, because the program is perennially solid.

Anthony Raffa in his first year coaching the Wildwood Catholic Academy boys’ basketball team.

Raffa scored 1,893 career points and led the Crusaders to South Jersey Non-Public B titles in 2006 and 2007. He averaged 30.4 points and was the 2007 Press of Atlantic City Boys Basketball Player of the Year as a senior.

At Coastal Carolina and again in the pro ranks, he was a playmaker. Raffa blended his freewheeling, intense individual style into teams with a structured framework. He was a sparkplug, upgrading the energy wave of a contest.

Raffa was a portrait of instinct, with an intangible sense of anticipation.

He knew when to pull up and take a three-point shot, or wait until the last second to pass to an open teammate. He knew when to break toward the opposing hoop from his own backcourt if sensing a teammate might pick off an inbounds pass.

Raffa could hit a shot from midcourt, steal a pass from an unsuspecting defender, or be the first to arrive where he knew the play should end up.

Two seasons ago, he averaged 15.6 points and 4.9 rebounds for Kienergia Rieti, a team based in central Italy. Even then, 13 years removed from Wildwood Catholic, he looked born to play the game.

Basketball, in turn, enriched him. It stamped his passport to new cultures in Italy, Kuwait, Turkey, Bulgaria, France, Switzerland and many countries.

Even in Iran, where he played for a team.

“I absolutely loved it,” he says of a country that has been in a cold war with the United States for more than four decades. “You go to a place like Iran and people here say, ‘Why would you do that?’ I tell them that I am playing a game I love and learning so much. Iran is an absolutely beautiful country and the people there are amazing.”

Raffa played for European teams throughout the winter and spring before returning here for Sea Isle City summers. Part of that time was spent in Strathmere working at Mildred’s Restaurant, which his family then owned.

It was a dream life until, one day, it wasn’t.

Raffa could not thwart the double-team effect of the pandemic in 2020. Part 1 occurred in Italy, which had experienced a spike in the coronavirus. That had helped prompt a U.S. travel ban on passengers from Europe and he had to return before the order took hold.

“We were on a trip going to Milan and they blocked the borders going into or out of there,” Raffa recalls. “At that point, it got really serious over there. It became a strict lockdown, more so than here. You needed a special pass from the police to be out at certain times. Fortunately, the police department came to our games and they knew who we were.

“But at some point, I was worried about getting back here. I had to shut down the season and I left there on the very last day.”

Raffa returned to Sea Isle City, where he spent the summer and prepared to go back for another season.

But then came Part 2. While waiting to return, he was volunteering with the Wildwood Catholic program. Raffa worked out with the team, served as a voice of experience to young players, and prepared for his next step.

Raffa playing for Kienergia Rieti in central Italy.

But it would not be onto a plane. He had contracted COVID. Fortunately, it felt like a mild case to him. Unfortunately, that slammed the brakes on this playing career.

“I had signed a deal to go back to Italy. It was a team I wanted to play for, and I was excited,” he says. “I was right here in Sea Isle, just waiting to leave. That’s when I got the news. The vaccine wasn’t out yet. I couldn’t leave.

“Without that, I would still be playing,” adds Raffa, who, at 32, still had mileage left in his career.

Raffa soon pivoted, maintained his informal role with the team and considered the reality of staying here.

He did not expect to be coaching the Crusaders one year later. But the opening occurred and there he was this past winter, instructing players in a venue where he’d once played as a teenager.

“It’s a new chapter, it’s on to something else,” he says. “I had been happy to just help out with the kids for a while when I was getting ready to go back to Italy. But after COVID, I figured to stick it out here and see what happens.

“When I was asked to take over the job, I said, ‘Sure.’”

And that began the next phase of his life.

“With Anthony being one of our all-time great players to come through the program, his return to us is exciting,” says Wildwood Catholic athletic director Mike Saioni. “Players responded to him. The first year was new for everyone, there were a lot of new faces on the team. I was pleased with his disposition on the sidelines and his ability to relate to the players who were younger. Anthony has a bright future in coaching.”

“The biggest thing you need to do on Day 1 is establish the right culture,” Saioni adds. “It was a matter of putting his own mark on it, extending what that is. He and I spoke extensively about his expectations. Culture is the preeminent factor regarding the expectations he sets for his players, not just on the court but off the court. Anthony embraced that aspect; he did a good job.”

Next season will be an interesting growth period for Raffa. Part of him wants to take the jump shot, find the open man, or lead a charge up court. The other part knows he can’t do that in street clothes.

This was not the vision that playmaking guard Anthony Raffa saw for himself a couple of years ago.

But it is the new role for Coach Raffa.