Rich Corsetto will be 78 in November and has been coaching basketball for more than five decades. And he’s not ready to retire.
Corsetto, who has won 748 games between high school and college, is once again returning to coach locally after being named the new head boys basketball coach at Kearny Christian Academy.
“I had no intentions of really retiring,” said Corsetto, who has been watching his grandkids play since his last coaching role at Bronx Community College. “I’ve been around a long time. I still decided that I want to work with kids and this came about, so I decided to take it.”
Corsetto admits there was some skepticism about the decision to return, but ultimately has the support to return to coaching from his wife Doreen and the rest of his family.
“They questioned it a little bit, but I’ve always had the support from my family,” Corsetto said. “My wife is my biggest supporter and she just asked me if I thought I was ready to go back and this and that because kids are different today. I said, ‘yeah, I’m ready to give it a shot.’ So I’m giving it a shot and seeing what happens.”
Corsetto’s coaching career began at Passaic Tech in 1972, where he led the team to a Passaic County championship. From there, he spent three seasons at the since-closed Neumann Prep in Wayne and extended run in college at Hudson County Community College and Passaic County Community College.
In 2013, Corsetto, after a three-year absence from coaching, returned to the high school level as the head coach at North Arlington. Corsetto’s four seasons at North Arlington were some of the most successful the program has enjoyed in recent memory, as under Corsetto, the Vikings went 66-33, highlighted by a pair of 20-plus win seasons.
For his career, Corsetto has a 302-115 record on the high school level
While Corsetto has embraced challenges, Kearny Christian represents perhaps the greatest of his career.
Kearny Christian is not a NJSIAA member school, instead playing in the Metro Christian Athletic Association, a league that also includes Abundant Life of Nutley.
Last season, Kearny Christian only played an abbreviated 13-game season.
“I’ve had a lot of challenges, many over the years. This is a little different because they didn’t really play a full schedule,” said Corsetto. “I’m going to (have a full schedule) now. I’m going about trying to build the program. There’s six or seven kids coming back, plus some kids coming in as freshmen, so we should be respectable.
“There’s some talent there and they’re very nice, hard working kids. I’m just looking to build.”
In addition to some summer workouts with his players, Corsetto has also brought in one of his longtime assistants Macello D’Andrea with him.
While it remains to be seen what type of build up Corsetto can bring at Kearny Christian, this latest challenge provides him the opportunity to end his storied career on his own terms.
“I want to just end it when I want to end it. I may do this till I’m 90,” Corsetto said with a laugh. “I’m going to just do it until I can’t get there anymore.”
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Jason Bernstein | Observer Sports Writer
Jason Bernstein joined The Observer as its sports writer in March 2022, following the retirement of Jim Hague. He has a wealth of sports-writing experience, including for NJ Advance Media (nj.com, The Jersey Journal, The Star-Ledger.)