Brian Giorgis reflects on his life, his career, and his legacy at Marist

Surrounded by his family, team and former players at retirement ceremony in February, Brian Giorgis (center, in suit) prepares for his final games as Marist head coach. (Photo by Mike Ferraro/Marist Athletics)

Mention the name Brian Giorgis to most basketball fans, and most of the same superlatives will come to mind through the majority of that informal survey.

Loved by most, respected by all, unmatched in the bonds he builds and sustains with anyone fortunate to call herself one of his players. All those descriptions fit the bill when describing Giorgis, whose farewell tour reaches a crescendo this week in Atlantic City when his Marist team descends upon the MAAC tournament for the last time in his 21-year tenure.

“It’s really pretty simple,” Giorgis said as he reflected on a four-decade career that began with an equally successful run in the high school ranks at Our Lady of Lourdes in Poughkeepsie. “It’s the players and it’s the assistant coaches that I’ve had from day one, all the way to now with Coach (Erin) Doughty, who’s taking over for me, from players from my first captains in ’83-84, all the way to this group with Zaria (Shazer), Kendall (Krick) and Kiara (Fisher), and everyone else.”

“I’ve just been blessed with players that really understand what we’re trying to do and play as a team. They’ve just done an incredible job, and they’ve done an incredible job my whole life.”

Giorgis’ resume speaks for itself, with his stellar high school accolades only burnished over the years by 11 MAAC championships at Marist, including an unprecedented nine straight from 2006 to 2014. But underneath all the wins — 451 at Lourdes and 463 at Marist, to be exact — lies a desire to simply affect someone for the better, the one thing he continues to find joy in through the final hours of his coaching career.

“Every championship is special,” Giorgis said before getting to the heart of the matter. “My high school ones are special, also. The one thing I’ve never done is taken things for granted. And the thing is the last couple years, we’ve struggled a bit for a number of reasons. It’s about players and what you do for players, trying to make their experience here a good one, getting them ready for the real world whether that’ll be in high school or college. That’s what makes it all special. And that’s what I’m going to miss, really the players and the coaches.”

And in Erin Doughty, his designated successor who has been with him from his infancy as a college coach through a career that can now drink legally, Giorgis sees the same well-rounded persona and approach that will only enhance the Marist program once his time has indeed come.

“People kind of look at it and say, ‘oh, she was a walk-on,’” Giorgis explained. “She was a brilliant person. She studied the game, when she was on the sideline and she knew she was not getting in, she knew what was going on. From the first day that we asked her in her senior year to be a coach when one of our assistants had to go home because her mom had cancer and she was the oldest of nine, (Doughty) just blew Coach (Megan) Gebbia and myself away with how she handled herself in her first meeting. It was like she had been with us for three to four years, and you just knew she was going to be special. The thing is as you get older and stuff like that, and people see that I can be forgetful, that I can do sometimes not real smart things and stuff, and they see her and how she reacts to people. She is beloved, and she has always been for 21 years here.”

“It was a no-brainer. I’ve got six or seven (former players) being head coaches in Division I or II, and every single one of them said that this should be Erin’s job. I can leave with my head held high and knowing that it is in great hands. It’s not in good hands, it’s in great hands.”

Doughty will inevitably face the comparisons of living up to a legend and the high standard that has come to be expected at Marist, but considering how well most other branches of her mentor’s coaching tree have already fared in their own nascent careers, any bouts of adversity in the early phases should come few and far between.

“I’ve had a lot of smart people,” Giorgis recalled. “It’s just a matter of if they had a chance. If you look at the people that are head coaches, they were part of those 10 (championship) wins in 11 years. You take Megan Gebbia, who was my assistant my second year when we won the league that year, and she’s now the coach at Wake Forest, she’s gone to the quarterfinals in the ACC her first year. You take Alisa Kresge, who won the regular season championship Vermont, you take Maureen Magarity, who won a championship before at New Hampshire and has done a great job at Holy Cross. They’re great coaches, they’re smart people, but they’re even better people personally. You want to play for those people, just like people should want to play for Erin Doughty.”

As the sun sets on 40 years of unparalleled success in a unique manner, Giorgis did his best to try to convey how he hoped he would ultimately be remembered, although the testimonials he has received — and continues to receive — from hundreds of former players have already made that clear.

“I just think as a person who gave it his best shot, who was basically a kind Christian person to everyone that he came across in the sport,” Giorgis calmly stated with regard to a career epitaph of sorts. “I’ve tried to be a good person, as good as I can be. I think I’ve achieved that. You always want to make a difference and make a difference in people’s lives, and I think I have, but I have with a lot of great assistant coaches and other teammates. I just get a huge kick out of these kids who have graduated, they all have group chats and stuff like that. I could go out and just say, ‘you know, you’ve done good.’”