On Religion: Celtics Coach Joe Mazzulla Draws Cheers And Jeers For His Outspoken Faith
(ANALYSIS) It’s rare to hear eight seconds of dead silence during an NBA Finals press conference.
Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla was asked if, because of the “plight” of Black head coaches, it was significant that both teams in the Finals were led by Black men for the first time since 1975. Was this a source of pride for him?
Mazzulla's answer was blunt: “I wonder how many of those have been Christian coaches?”
The son of an Italian father and a Black mother, Mazzulla is an outspoken Catholic whose pregame routine includes pacing through an empty arena, praying with a rosary made with wood from the court of the original Boston Garden.
While his press conference response drew many cheers in social media, Los Angeles Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was not amused.
Mazzulla “decided to ignore a legitimate question about race that might have been illuminating and inspiring for others, and instead decided to virtue signal,” wrote Abdul-Jabbar, the six-time NBA MVP, on Substack.
He added that the answer was “strangely aggressive since Christians are not discriminated against but, as a group, are more likely to discriminate against others.”
The reporter who had asked the pivotal question, Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports, went further, suggesting that the Celtics coach apparently didn't grasp that it's “possible to be both Black and Christian.”
“This didn't feel like a denouncement of Mazzulla's Blackness, so to speak,” wrote Goodwill afterwards. “It wasn't quite the 'I'm not Black, I'm OJ' moment; it just leaves room for interpretation.”
This wasn't the first time that Mazzulla has puzzled journalists. In 2022, he was asked if he'd met the “royal family” after Prince William and Princess Kate attended a game.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph? ... I'm only familiar with one royal family,” he quipped. “I don't know too much about that one.”
Mazzulla is more than aware that his faith is part of his work and image, as the rare NBA head coach to win a title at the age of 35 or younger. After Monday's triumph over the Dallas Mavericks — claiming the 18th Celtics championship — Mazzulla faced the press wearing a black T-shirt with this message in large letters: “But first ... Let me thank God.” His young son, Emmanuel ("God is with us"), was at his side, beaming.
Asked about his wins and losses with the Celtics, the head coach noted: “Praise and criticism are both just as dangerous, if you don't handle them well. ... Winning is just as dangerous as losing.”
During a series of NBC Boston interviews after becoming head coach, Mazzulla admitted that he had struggled when injuries cut short his professional career as a player. Wrestling with doubts, he asked: “Who am I? Who is Joe Mazzulla the basketball player vs. Joe Mazzulla the person? ... My identity had been in something that is fleeting.”
Later, he prayed to become the head coach of the Celtics, which he has always considered his “hometown team” because of his family roots in New England. The dream came true, he said, but he admitted: “You have to be careful what you ask for.”
The crucial issue has been handling a tense balance between ambition and humility, between competitiveness and compassion, he said in an interview with Sports Spectrum, a magazine that covers faith and sports.
The bottom line: This has required wrestling with his core Christian beliefs.
“How I view God is going to be how I view myself, and how I view myself is how I am going to treat other people,” he said. “For a long time, like, my faith was good. I would read, I would go to church — but I didn't have the right view of God.
“I had MY view of God. It was almost like a check-the-box kind of thing, or a win-loss kind of thing. I felt like the area that I could bridge my relationship with Him was grace -- understanding my imperfections, understanding that I am a sinner, understanding that I am made different, understanding that there is NOTHING that I can do that can change the way He feels about me.”
Ultimately, faith is not about winning. It's about accepting forgiveness from a higher authority, said Mazzulla.
“I am," he stressed, “nowhere near the humility that Jesus talks about.”
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Terry Mattingly is the senior fellow on communications and culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a newsletter on faith and mass media.