University of North Carolina Athletics
Jacobs: "Grandfather" Calabria Looks Back
October 1, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Oct. 1, 2009
by Barry Jacobs, TarHeelBlue.com
He was the old man in the sea of blue and white, the oldest participant in September's Professional Alumni Game at Chapel Hill.
He is so old, he matriculated at UNC before this season's freshmen reached kindergarten. He is so old, the basketball program owned but two, not five, NCAA championships when he first donned a Tar Heel uniform. He is so old...well, you get the idea.
"I felt like the grandfather, being the oldest guy," said the 35-year-old, a veteran of 13 seasons in Europe.
Unlike most of the other participants, he had never played in the NBA nor garnered especial honors in the ACC. He was not among the two former ACC players of the year who took the court that Friday night, nor among the two ACC rookies of the year, the seven first-team All-ACC performers, or the five others who made second team all-conference.
What's more, he was the most out-of-shape of the 19 UNC-trained pros who took part in the exhibition game that inaugurated a year-long celebration of the program's 100th anniversary. Consequently he saw less court time than anyone, and his three shot attempts matched Ed Cota, the perennial set-up man, for fewest by any player.
Dante Calabria's reduced stamina and timing was understandable. He'd announced his retirement in the spring, aiming to shift to a career either in NBA coaching or broadcasting. But, by the time the charity event was played in Chapel Hill, he had discovered that tough economic times meant he must postpone his plans.
Yet, there was no question Calabria and his familiar No. 24 jersey belonged on the Smith Center court, his home away from home from the late summer of 1992, when he arrived from Pennsylvania with a shooter's reputation, through the spring of 1996. "As I look back, those moments become more precious every day," Calabria said. "To me, it was four years that went by in a blur."
Back then, freshmen were not as prominent in college basketball, particularly at Carolina, as they are today. Only a year before Calabria graduated from high school, Georgia Tech's Kenny Anderson became the second ACC player to leave for the pros following his freshman season, after Clemson's Skip Wise in 1975. Freshman starters in Dean Smith's program were once nearly as rare as home losses to the Tigers; even by the 1990s they were more the exception than the rule.
The Tar Heel Way, particularly with guards, involved breaking down a newcomer's game -- banishing bad habits and inculcating traits prized within the program, such as selflessness, teamwork, and intelligent play. Then there was understanding the passing game and the secondary break, the jump-switch and the scramble, until those practices became second nature.
Calabria and his flowing black locks fit in quickly at UNC after a prep career at Blackhawk High School in Beaver Falls, Pa., home of football's Joe Namath and the Miller brothers, Sean and Archie, now respectively head coach and assistant at the University of Arizona. "From the first, it was like he belonged here," said senior George Lynch, the team leader in 1993. "Nothing bothered him."
Calabria averaged 7.1 minutes per game in his first year under Smith as the Heels advanced to an NCAA title. His sophomore year his scoring average increased four-fold, his playing time tripled, and his ratio of assists to turnovers doubled.
North Carolina reached another Final Four in 1995 with Calabria, a full-time starter, sharing backcourt duties with Jeff McInnis and Donald Williams. He averaged 33 minutes and 10.5 points while hitting 49.6 percent of his 3-point attempts, best in the ACC. "He doesn't force anything on the court," said Jeff Jones, then Virginia's head coach and a former Cavalier point guard. "His contributions are done in a very quiet way. He makes the rest of his team better."
Calabria's senior year he was Carolina's No. 3 scorer and among its leaders in long-range accuracy, steals and assists. "I was lucky not only to learn from Coach Smith, but my high school coach was a fundamental guy," Calabria said of John Miller, father of that pair of Arizona coaches who share the same last name.
Calabria is quick to credit that training with his ability to survive and prosper in pro ball, where he has played on teams in Greece, Spain, France and Italy. In fact, such training is preferable in Europe, where the game is far less predicated on one-on-one play than in the U.S. When instructing youngsters, Calabria offers his playing career as an object lesson. "I ask how do you think I've done that?" he asks rhetorically. "They say this and that. It's because I'm a fundamental player."
Calabria, for all his interest in a broadcast career or a perch on an NBA bench, gets most enthusiastic discussing his work with youngsters, an activity that will continue through October at North Carolina venues from Charlotte to Wilmington, Greenville to Raleigh. He bubbles with excitement describing his work with a pre-teen at one of his $50-tuition clinics, where in a single session she went from being unable to hoist the ball to the rim to making shots regularly.
"That was one of the most rewarding things I've done, to see how big of a smile this girl had on her face," Calabria said. "It was awesome. I love that."
A husband and father of two, he resides in North Carolina, but prefers not to reveal the exact location. Calabria appreciates the attention and support of Tar Heel fans and other basketball aficionados, but spent too much time in Europe to accept a stateside status quo.
In his book "Man in the Middle," John Amaechi described playing in Europe as far more intense and intimate than the style he encountered in the U.S. "The fans treat competition, city against city, team against team, green against yellow, with a ferocity that would shock even the most rabid American sports fan," Amaechi wrote.
Calabria's experiences were similar, but more positive. Fans, "warm and open-hearted," thought nothing of sitting down at his table at a restaurant or visiting his home, sometimes with good intentions, if they could find it. "It's not unusual for fans to invite you to their house for dinner," Calabria said. "That's one of the biggest compliments you can get."
Once, when Calabria played at Cantu in northern Italy, fans demanded - and got - a meeting with the team to discuss its shortcomings. Imagining such a scenario in American basketball, pro or college, is mind-boggling. "It was quite comical, actually," Calabria said, chuckling. "That's how passionate the people are. It's actually quite enjoyable."
Sufficiently enjoyable so that, come November, Calabria will seek a position in Europe, content to play a supportive role coming off the bench at either backcourt spot for whomever will have him. The fact he holds dual Italian-American citizenship, his family having come from Salerno in southern Italy, means Calabria can be added to a roster without counting toward its limited allotment of Americans.
"I adapt easily to any situation," said the grizzled veteran, whose favorite European cities are Firenze (Florence), Moscow, Athens and Barcelona. "I'll go anywhere."
