Coordinator Of Men's Basketball Operations Named |
CLEMSON, SC - Clemson men's basketball head coach Oliver Purnell has
named Ben D'Alessandro the coordinator of men's basketball operations for the Tigers. D'Alessandro joins the Tiger staff after a four-year stint at James Madison University. A Cum Laude graduate in political science at Providence in 1995, D'Alessandro joined the basketball team as a walk-on player and lettered as a senior. He was named to the 1994-95 Big East Conference academic all-star team, and he received the Thomas S. Ramos Basketball Scholastic Award. The Friars were 17-13 and participants in the National Invitation Tournament his senior season. At Providence, he was a member of the senior class student senate and the political science honor society. Following his graduation from Providence, D'Alessandro spent the 1995-96 academic year as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Houston, working as a caseworker for at-risk inner-city children. He taught fourth grade at Wesley Elementary School in Houston for one year while completing his teaching certification at the University of St. Thomas, and he founded Houston's Wesley Athletic Club with the purpose of providing a positive structured environment for young boys without solid, family support. D'Alessandro served as youth minister/youth director at Charlottesville's Church of the Incarnation from 1997-98. He worked with 600 middle and high school youth, coordinating volunteer efforts, counseling and advising, and developing youth programs. During the 1998-99 season, D'Alessandro served as a graduate assistant coach at the University of Virginia. He was responsible for organizing equipment and travel, designing and implementing individual development for team members and breaking down video of team and opponents, along with other organizational and coaching duties. In 1999, D'Alessandro accepted a coaching position at James Madison University. During his first two seasons with the Dukes, D'Alessandro worked in a variety of on-campus capacities. Restrictions on his position kept him from taking part in off-campus recruiting, but he was involved in on-campus recruiting, recruiting correspondence, identifying underclassmen for future recruitment, film exchanges and breakdowns, scheduling, and travel coordination. He also was very involved in the monitoring of the academic progress of the team's players. D'Alessandro spent the next three seasons as an assistant coach organizing and coordinating travel arrangements, film exchange and scouting. He was responsible for the top recruiting class in the Colonial Athletic Association, and helped turn around the team's overall academic performance as the Dukes posted their highest overall GPA in school history in both 2000 and 2001. D'Alessandro also helped lead James Madison to the CAA regular season championship with a 20-9 mark during the 1999-2000 season. D'Alessandro also has experience working with a number of high-profile basketball camps during recent summers. During the summer of 1999, he was a counselor-coach for Five Star basketball camps at Hampden-Sydney College and Robert Morris College. He was the head counselor and resident coach at the PITT I and Post-Man camps and head camp director of the Five-Star Development Youth Camp in Richmond. He worked as a counselor at Pete Gillen's basketball camp and has directed his own Ben D'Alessandro Basketball Camp in Charlottesville since 1998. He also has worked at camps at the University of Richmond and at Manhattan College. D'Alessandro is a Charlottesville, Va., native and a 1991 graduate of Western Albemarle High School where he was a standout in basketball, football, soccer and tennis. D'Alessandro and his wife, the former Karen Gerges, have one son, Rece, born June 29, 2003.
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