Coach Mantegna and Luol Deng ('03)

Coach Joe Mantegna

Coach Mantegna arrived at Blair ten years ago and has built Blair into a national prep school basketball powerhouse. Blair’s record since Mantegna’s arrival is 180 - 73, including six of the last nine MAPL league titles (2000-2003, 2005, 2006) and six trips to the NJ Prep A State Finals, including a State Title in 2009.

Blair was the only school in the country to put two players (Luol Deng and Charlie Villanueva) in the 2003 McDonald’s All-American Game. 24 former Blair players have ended up on Division I rosters in the last ten years and sixteen are currently playing college basketball, while three are in the NBA (Royal Ivey, Luol Deng and Charlie Villanueva).

The Star Ledger named Blair Academy’s 2001 team as the “NJ Prep Team of the Year.” In 2000, Mantegna was named the New Jersey State Prep School “Coach of the Year” by the Star Ledger, and the Blairstown Press named him “2002 Boy’s Warren County Coach of the Year.”

Before arriving at Blair, Mantegna served as an assistant coach at four colleges in an eight-year span including three years at both Boston University and Lehigh University. In addition, Coach Mantegna has run the Joe Mantegna Basketball School for the last 17 years in Northampton, Massachusetts, as well as the Wednesday Workouts, Buccaneer Fundamentals Basketball School and Individual Skills School in Blairstown, N.J., for the last ten years in Blairstown. He also regularly lectures at basketball camps and coaches clinics throughout the Northeast and hosts the annual Coaches Roundtable each June on campus at Blair.

Mantegna lives on campus with his wife, Shelly, and their three children. In addition to his coaching duties, he serves as the Associate Dean of College Counseling.

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