By Tucker Paquette
@tpaquette17
When several members of the same family find long-term success in the same occupation, whatever it is they are doing is often described as a “family business.” Well, in Connecticut, the Reilly family has been deeply involved with basketball for three generations.
This well-accomplished line of basketball coaches and players began with Joseph Reilly and his brother, Gene Reilly. Joseph, who was a longtime high school basketball coach, spent most of his coaching career at South Catholic High School, coaching there for 27 years. Over the course of his long and storied career, he totaled over 500 career wins and five state titles.
Gene sits in similarly rarified air, with 547 wins during his 35-year coaching career at Portland High School.
As impressive as the resumes of Joseph and Gene Reilly are, however, perhaps what’s even more impressive is that they are just the beginning of a long line of prominent local basketball figures within the family.
Joseph Reilly has two sons, Joe and Luke — Joe is the head men’s basketball coach at Wesleyan University, while Luke has been the head boys basketball coach at East Catholic High School since the turn of the century.
Interestingly, one of Luke Reilly’s sons, Samson, is a prominent player on East Catholic. In this way, the father and son duo are adding onto an already-rich family tradition centered around basketball.
Luke has firsthand insights into what it’s like to be a coach’s son, considering that he was just that for a good chunk of his childhood. This gives him a lens into the possible lose-lose scenario his son could face.
“It’s a dynamic that I had to live through as a player, and it’s very hard because any success you have is because your dad is the coach and any mishap you have is amplified because your dad is the coach,” Luke said.
However, Samson is more focused on how he can help his team succeed both now and moving forward, instead of dwelling on the drawbacks of the father-son dynamic.
“I’m trying to continue to grow as a leader on this team,” Samson said. “I know a lot of the younger guys are looking up to me, and I want to show them what East Catholic is about and leave the program [in a] better [position] than when I came in.”
Both father and son see their loss this afternoon, by a final score of 81-52 at the hands of Christ the King H.S., as more of a learning experience than a troubling setback. This mindset illustrates the confidence the duo have built through their days operating on the same court.
“This is the road to a state championship for us,” Luke said. “We have to take the lessons we’ve learned here and apply them to the rest of our season and our postseason.”
“We lost [at Hoophall] last year as well, and that drove us to a state championship,” Samson added.
As the two continue to rack up accolades together, (East Catholic has won three consecutive state titles), Luke makes sure he equally distributes the coaching and support amongst all of his players. In doing so, he constructs a tightly-knit team.
“When people ask me, I say I treat them all like my sons,” Luke said. “There’s a lot of love in that locker room and guys know it. They know the sacrifices that I make for them and they make for me. When you have that type of environment, you win a lot of games and you change a lot of lives.”
Samson acknowledges how unique of an opportunity he has in getting to play for his father, and he wishes he realized this more often while he’s in the moment.
“[The fact that I’m coached by my father] is something that I do a poor job of noticing,” Samson said. “In [a year or two from now], I’m going to be looking back at it, wishing I enjoyed it more than I did.”
“We do get in arguments, there are mishaps, but for the most part it’s a really special [dynamic] and I wish it could last forever,” Samson added.