The first thing you should know about Ettore Messina is that he is a man of many tongues. He can speak with Marco Belinelli in Italian, chat with Manu Ginobili in Spanish, joke with Tony Parker in French, banter with Gregg Popovich in Russian and communicate with everyone else in perfect English.
The second thing you should know: Messina owes his globetrotting career as a coach to a man who knew nothing about basketball, his late father, Filippo, a lawyer in Venice, Italy. If not for Filippo Messina, a gentleman with no interest in sports, Ettore would not be a Spurs assistant. If not for the father, the son may have never left Italy.
Here’s how it happened: When Ettore was 16, Filippo made him learn a new language. “I want you to learn English,” the father said, “because English will be good for your life.”
After school, Ettore spent two hours a day, three times a week learning the language. At the same time, he was playing basketball for a coach he revered, Renato Dianello. At 17, Ettore recognized his limitations as a player and quit to follow a role model. “I was fascinated by my coach,” Ettore says. “I thought he was a great coach and I wanted to become like him.”
While mastering English, Ettore coached a junior team that included his younger brother, Attilio. Years later, Ettore became the youth programs coach for an elite professional team, Virtus Bologna. “They were like the Celtics at the time,” Ettore says. “One of the top teams in Italy. A lot of tradition. A lot of championships. Playing before 10,000 people every game.”
A break came when Virtus Bologna signed a coach who needed to communicate with an American player, Jan van Breda Kolff. “The new coach didn’t speak English,” Ettore says, “so he said, ‘Why don’t you be my lead assistant?’ And that’s how I became an assistant coach for a pro team that was playing in the European Cup. That year we won the national championship.”
English had opened one door. Spanish would open others. In 1989, Filippo’s son became the head coach for Virtus Bologna and won the Italian Cup that first season. As his career flourished, Ettore began giving clinics in Spain. “I was going there every summer,” he says, “and ended up being fluent in Spanish.”
His fascination with language and culture did not end in Spain. During a second stint with Virtus Bologna, Ettore coached Antoine Rigaudeau, a 6-7 guard from France. From Rigaudeau, Ettore learned some French.
When Ettore joined CSKA Moscow in 2005, he began learning Russian. Ettore will tell you he’s not fluent. But he knows enough to conduct a press conference in Russian. “I still speak a little bit,” he says. “But the bottom line: English and Spanish have made my life a lot easier.”
He tells a story. More than 30 years ago, North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith arrived in Milan to conduct a clinic. Smith needed a translator. At 21, Ettore got the job. He spent two days with Smith and made a connection. “I ended up visiting him in Chapel Hill 10 times,” Ettore says.
On one visit to Chapel Hill, Ettore met Larry Brown, who was holding a camp with his Indiana Pacers staff. On the same visit, Ettore met Smith assistant, Roy Williams. During one clinic in Spain, Ettore befriended NBA coaches Hubie Brown and Chuck Daly. “Just because I spoke English,” Ettore says, “I got to know people. I made connections.”
As his network of coaching relationships expanded -- he befriended Popovich and consulted for Mike Brown of the Lakers -- Ettore enjoyed remarkable success. He won two Euroleague Championships with Virtus Bologna (1998 and 2001) and two with CSKA Moscow (2006 and 2008). In 2008, he was named one of the Top 10 Euroleague coaches in history.
The most international of NBA assistants seems a perfect fit for the league’s most international team. Ettore is excited about Spurs preseason games in Berlin (Oct. 8) and Istanbul (Oct. 11). “The way this organization is looking forward to this trip -- not only basketball-wise but also to see two great capitals -- makes me feel I’m in the right place.”
When Ettore grew up in Venice, he recalls his father, a cultured man, listening to opera at home. When Ettore started coaching, Fillipo Messina did not appear interested. Ettore saw his father at only a couple of games. A surprise, however, emerged after Filippo died. While sorting through his father’s belongings, Ettore found a box. Inside was a large collection of newspaper articles, story after story about Ettore’s teams.
Filippo, it turns out, had followed his son’s career all along. The father who made his son learn English clipped and saved the results of those lessons in Italy, Moscow and Spain, all around the world. In that moment of discovery, a son understood. A father’s love for language and culture had reached another generation. Ettore’s own son, also named Filippo,has been schooled in Madrid and Moscow and now America.
“He speaks Italian, Spanish, English and a few words of Russian,” Ettore says. “I’m very proud. He’s only 10.”