Nick Sparacino joined the Longwood men’s basketball staff as a graduate assistant coach in August of 2018, rounding on head coach Griff Aldrich’s bench entering his first season at the helm.
Sparacino brings experience as a coach, educator and high-level student and student-athlete to the Longwood program from a playing and coaching career that has taken him all around the Northeast. He has coached players at the college, high school and AAU levels, all while balancing a career as a K-12 teacher in Maryland.
A 2015 graduate of Salisbury where he played for Longwood assistant coach Maurice Williams, Sparacino’s role on the Lancer staff is to aid in practice planning and execution, monitor the student-athletes’ academic progress and contribute to scouting and game-planning.
Sparacino has become well-suited for those areas during a career that began as an assistant coach at Washington College in Chestertown, Md., and has also included coaching stints with the D.C. Blue Devils AAU 15U program, Springfield Commonwealth Academy and at several basketball camps in the Northeast, including with the Boston Celtics Camp, Red Auerbach Camp, Salisbury University, Coach Joe Wootten and Hoop Group Elite/Academic Elite.
Sparacino also has experience in the classroom, teaching at Springfield Commonwealth Academy in Springfield, Mass., and in the Montgomery County Public Schools system in Montgomery County, Md.
His arrival at Longwood is the latest step in a basketball career that saw Sparacino play a significant role in Salisbury’s rise to Capital Athletic Conference prominence, helping the program win the CAC under Williams in 2015 and reach the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time in 19 years. Sparacino captained that team and sparked the Sea Gulls to a 21-8 overall record, a 14-4 mark in conference play and a first-round win over Eastern Connecticut State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Sparacino received Salisbury’s Student-Athlete Academic Achievement Award as a senior, capping a college career that saw him earn his bachelor’s degree in exercise science with a minor in athletic coaching and community health.
