Remembering Mike Babul: ‘He was really just a superhuman’

Mike Babul, a beloved basketball figure in New England, died on Dec. 30 at 47 years old. (Jason Ong)

Derek Kellogg and Mike Babul went back a long way together. They met at UMass in the late 1990s, when Kellogg was a grad assistant and Babul was a player. It continued as Kellogg helped Babul get his coaching career going during a stop at Memphis in 2003. Their friendship grew stronger over the years since.

But on a March night in 2018, they were brief adversaries. And Kellogg, as he liked to do from time to time, wanted to tease his friend.

Kellogg was in his first season as the head coach at LIU Brooklyn, and Babul was the associate head coach at Wagner. On this night, the two friends were facing off in the Northeast Conference tournament championship game, with a bid to the NCAA Tournament on the line. And shortly before tip-off, they had a chance to catch up outside the locker rooms.

Kellogg was loose, and wasn’t feeling pressure, almost playing with house money. But he could tell Babul was stressed. It was his scout, and Wagner was at home for the big game, where they entered undefeated. As they hung out in the bowels of the Spiro Sports Center, Kellogg decided to have some fun.

“​​I was like, ‘Yeah, listen man, we’re just going to ball out a little bit,’” Kellogg recalled. “And then I said, ‘Man, I’m glad I had all week to put in that new zone that we’re running for you guys.’

“He turned beet-red and said about two more words and sprinted down to (his) locker room. He took off. You had to see his face.”

Kellogg, of course, was just messing around with his buddy. A few hours later, his LIU Brooklyn team pulled the upset with a 71-61 win to advance to the NCAA Tournament. There were no hard feelings.

“As much as it hurt them to lose, he actually was genuinely happy for my success and my family,” Kellogg said.

It all perfectly captured Babul, who unexpectedly and tragically died on Dec. 30 at just 47 years old. A local basketball legend from North Attleboro, Mass., who went on to embark on a long coaching career that culminated as the head coach at Thayer Academy, his memory will live on with stories like Kellogg told. Babul was a competitor, a coach revered for his high basketball acumen and ability to touch the lives of young athletes wherever he went, and at the end of the day, a fiercely loyal and supportive friend who could always be counted on.

“Just a genuine person. There was no filter with Mike,” Kellogg said. “I think he always wanted people to do well, even in competition. He was always really concerned about my family and asking how my wife and son were doing.

“He was really just a superhuman.”

Before he became a deeply respected and successful coach, Babul was one of the biggest stars in New England. Alongside his brother Jon, he was a standout at North Attleboro High School, where he became the school’s all-time leading scorer and the Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year in 1996. Bruiser Flint, an assistant at UMass when they recruited him, remembered going to North Attleboro and watching the two brothers dominate weaker competition.

“Mike was so athletic,” Flint said. “I was like, ‘These two guys right here are so much better than these dudes I’m watching them play against.”

It wasn’t until the AAU season, when Babul suited up for BABC, that his potential as a big 6-foot-6 athletic wing stood out. Babul was highly recruited nationally but ultimately chose to stay at home at UMass as a member of John Calipari’s final recruiting class.

Babul never played a game for Calipari, who left in 1996 for the NBA. But Babul didn’t consider leaving UMass, which was coming off a Final Four appearance and was a national power at the time, as Flint took over as the head coach.

Babul didn’t play much as a freshman, but though he wasn’t a great shooter, he committed himself to the defensive end and turned himself into a three-time Atlantic 10 All-Defensive team selection.

“You’d love him now, because he took away the 3, and he wasn’t going to let you drive it,” said Mike Mannix, who worked for the UMass basketball team in the late 1990s and is now the head coach at Wilbraham & Monson. “He wasn’t going to let you get into the paint. He’s forcing Paul Pierce to take a contested 16-foot jump shot.

“He was as athletic as could be and it came on a frame that was strong.”

It was at UMass where Babul met Winston Smith, who eventually became his best friend. But the two didn’t necessarily hit it off right away. They each entered UMass as highly-touted freshmen in 1996, and there was a spot open for playing time at the small forward position that they both wanted.

“We didn’t really like each other at first,” Smith said. “We were both true competitors. He wanted that spot, I wanted that spot. We fought every day, we competed every day.”

Eventually, the competition subsided. Their bond grew after their freshman year, with regular hangouts in each other’s dorm rooms inside John Quincy Adams Hall, or going to downtown Amherst for trips to McMurphy’s, a popular college bar. They were inseparable throughout their college years.

“If Mike was somewhere, Winston was with him,” Smith said. “If Winston was somewhere, Mike was with him. It would be odd if (we weren’t) together. … In a short period of time, he and I built a lot of memories.”

Eventually, their coaching careers followed that theme when Babul worked with Smith at Youngstown State and Wagner. Babul’s path was rooted at UMass, where he told Flint upon graduating that he wanted to get into coaching. From there, he made a UMass connection at virtually every stop. In 2003, Calipari took him in at Memphis as the assistant director of operations. Kellogg, an assistant there at the time, briefly let Babul live with him to help him get on his feet.

“He was a young guy trying to find his way in the profession and in life,” Kellogg said. “I thought he was working really hard and was diligent about trying to become a coach. You could just tell he had a passion and a fire for the game and to be great. I kind of admired that he just gave up everything to chase his dream and goals.

“Whatever you needed from him, he was always there.”

After Memphis, Babul connected with John Robic – a former UMass assistant when he was a player – to join his staff at Youngstown State. A year later, he joined Flint’s staff at Drexel. A year after that, he was off to UTEP under Tony Barbee – another former UMass assistant – to be his director of basketball operations, then followed Barbee to Auburn in 2010 for the same job.

“He was a true part of the family,” Flint said.

Mannix met Babul when they were in the same sports management class at UMass and got to know him more when he worked for the basketball team. In 2006, they reconnected briefly at Drexel. Babul was leaving for UTEP, Mannix was taking his old job, and Babul took a couple days to show his successor the ropes before he took off.

As Mannix watched Babul’s coaching career unfold, stop after stop – which also included seven years at Wagner under Bashir Mason, who Babul coached at Drexel – it was clear to him how deeply respected and wanted he was.

“Guys who he played under, and guys who he coached, are all asking him to join their staff. Those are guys you spend more time around than your own family,” Mannix said.

“If those guys are bringing you on board and asking you (to) move to Texas, move to Alabama, move to Staten Island and move to Philadelphia, those guys are asking you to come be part of your basketball family. They don’t do that unless someone’s a really good person and really serious about what they do, and that was Mike Babul.”

After Wagner, Babul spent the 2019-20 season with the Long Island Nets – the G-League affiliate of the Brooklyn Nets – before he returned home to Massachusetts. For several reasons, he was looking for a fresh start, and he eventually found a perfect balance professionally. He became the director of the MetroWest Swarm, an AAU program based out of Mansfield. He started his own company, Hoop Work, LLC, which specialized private basketball instruction for young athletes. Last summer, he became a coach of the Draft League, a summer league for middle schoolers.

Babul, in some ways, was rejuvenated. He was back home, working in the game he loved and impacting the lives of young athletes throughout New England.

“He was back in his happy place, which was being around kids and coaching basketball,” Flint said.

Babul had always wanted to be a head coach, too, and checked that off in 2023. He was initially hired to return to lead North Attleboro High School in June of that summer, but then took an opportunity to take the head-coaching job at Thayer Academy in November.

Mannix remembers getting a call from Babul when he took the Thayer job. They talked about New England prep basketball, with Mannix helping him learn some of the ins and outs, and it was apparent how excited Babul was.

“I could hear it in his voice,” Mannix said. “You could tell he was smiling when he told me the news. …

“He’s a guy that I would absolutely want to coach my kids, because one, I knew how good of a person he was and two, I knew that he knew the game. He knew the game and he knew how to teach the game.”

Despite starting the job late, Babul led Thayer to a strong 13-11 record in his first season. It was obvious to other NEPSAC coaches that he was the right coach for the job, and that Thayer was on the rise. Not only was Babul an excellent X’s and O’s coach, capable of teaching the game at a high level, but it was clear that he was making an immediate difference in the lives of his players.

Mannix was at one of Babul’s camps last summer, and one of his Thayer players came up to him to introduce himself.

“He had a lot of good things to say about Mike, and this is a kid that just played under Mike for one year,” Mannix said. “You could tell the kid kept making references in different ways to the impact Mike was having on him, and the kid himself evolving into a team leader. That oftentimes comes from the coach, the voice of the coach, guidance and all those lessons. I could see it.

“It was clear in the first two minutes of the conversation that in one season, Mike had a four-year type of impact on the kid.”

This season, Babul had led Thayer to a strong 5-1 start. His last game came on Dec. 21 against Williston Northampton, which had special meaning to Kellogg, whose son Max plays at Williston. Kellogg, who’s now an assistant coach at Creighton, viewed from afar on a livestream, watching his friend run his own program with his son playing on the other side.

Two days later, Kellogg and Babul talked on the phone for roughly an hour as they discussed that game. It was ultimately the last time they spoke.

“He was just beaming about his team,” Kellogg said. “They were 5-0, they lost to Williston but they fought back in the second half, they got down 17, cut it to six, he was really excited about some of his young guys. You could just feel the energy coming through the phone about the team, the program and where it was heading.”

Babul’s life will be remembered with that kind of infectious energy that he brought every day. It will be celebrated with the endless memories he created, like when he dunked on someone on a men’s league team with Kellogg in New York and flashed his signature smirk. Smith will deeply miss the annual golf trips they spent together that became so important as their lives got busier.

Babul is gone too soon but will certainly not soon be forgotten as not only a beloved basketball figure, but to those who knew him closely, the best friend you could find.

“We’re still trying to figure out why, but God had a plan and God wanted him in heaven,” Smith said. “He was a friend who I could truly, truly lean on. He was just a special person to me.”