TILTON, N.H. — Life was good for Marcus O’Neil in his brief hiatus away from Tilton. It allowed him time to do what he missed out on for the previous 15 years.
O’Neil – the architect of the program that won the 2009 national prep championship, six New England championships and produced six NBA players – left Tilton in 2021 and hit the road to visit his basketball family.
O’Neil caught up with Noah LaRoche, a former coach with him at Tilton who’s now an offensive innovator in pro basketball. He was able to go see his former players who are still in the NBA, including Georges Niang and Terance Mann who were teammates with the Atlanta Hawks last season. He found time to watch his players in college, which included a drive to upstate New York to see Logan Wendell at Ithaca.
Perhaps most importantly, he was able to spend precious time with his family, which includes two young children.
“I never thought I’d be a dad who didn’t want to miss bedtime,” O’Neil said. “It was not having to make those tough choices.”
But as much as he enjoyed it, O’Neil kept getting tugged back. His 7-year-old daughter, Ada, was old enough to remember Tilton, and it wasn’t infrequent that she asked him about going back.
“Hey dad, why don’t you go back and work at that school? Why don’t you go and coach basketball?’” O’Neil recalled. “She would say, ‘You should be coaching basketball.’”
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O’Neil had given the school space following his departure, but he stayed in touch with longtime Tilton girls coach Tara Brisson, who became a close friend during their time coaching in the same building. But last year, Brisson invited O’Neil back to her “scrimmage squad” runs, where she would ask male players – typically faculty members or players from the JV boys team – to play against her girls. During one run, there was a moment when O’Neil engaged in some friendly banter with Brooke Golden, and it reminded him how much joy being around young athletes gave him.
“I sort of said something to insult her and she gave it back,” O’Neil recalled. “There were moments during the scrimmage squad where I was like, ‘I miss this.’”
Earlier this year, the Tilton job opened up after former coach Mike Byrnes stepped down. O’Neil asked himself, ‘Am I interested?’ He wasn’t sure, but he applied to return and explored the process and the possibility. Those little reminders eventually pulled him all the way back. In April, it became official; O’Neil returned to lead Tilton’s boys program.
O’Neil feels refreshed, and he’s back where he belongs.
“I’m energized. It keeps you young,” O’Neil said. “One of the problems of getting older is you become a grouch or something. Being around teenagers — if you’re not coming with optimism and positivity, it’s hard for them to connect with you. …
“This forces me to look at the world with fresh eyes. That’s my selfish reason for wanting to be back. I get a lot from being around the players and students.”
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His presence is certainly welcomed back. Brisson spent significant time trying to convince O’Neil to come back; not only because she knew firsthand what his success leading the boys program looks like, but because he impacts her girls teams positively, too. They’ve picked up where they left off.
O’Neil’s return is bringing added excitement to basketball right now at Tilton, where the girls are coming off a NEPSAC Class AAA and national prep championship.
“I felt as though the dynamic duo was back together,” Brisson said. “As a coach, I love those conversations where he would come into my office after a game and be like, ‘Have you tried this? This is what I saw.’ Just to exchange the basketball mind stuff is really nice with somebody who I trust who I also think is brilliant with building teams.
“I think the buzz is really good right now.”
But O’Neil knows there’s work to be done to fulfill that buzz and bring Tilton back to those incredible heights. He wasn’t gone long, but he knows there have been drastic changes to the amateur basketball landscape since his departure. He knew the transfer portal, NIL and rule changes at the JUCO level have all had a trickle-down effect on prep school basketball.
When O’Neil was considering his return, his first call was to Leo Papile, the founder and longtime coach of BABC. Tilton had enjoyed a long pipeline of BABC players leading its success during O’Neil’s first run, and he wanted to get to know Papile’s program again and restart that connection. The next calls went to longtime coaches Mike Hart and John Carroll. He wanted to learn more about the current landscape and the changes. Could he still recruit the right players to run a consistently viable program?
He left those calls satisfied.
“I think my impression after talking to people is, there’s enough that stayed the same and great things happening that you can still enroll kids who love basketball and be competitive,” O’Neil said. “Whether you’re in NEPSAC or not, it can still be a good experience and good for the schools.”
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But, O’Neil said, it’s also important for him that there are so many things that have changed. On the court, he knows that the level of shotmaking and 3-point shooting has gone up. The new challenge is reinvigorating for him.
“It keeps you young,” O’Neil said. “If you’re just an old guy who says, ‘That’s not the way how we do it and I hate how they do it,’ like that’ll help you get old real fast. I’m excited because things have changed and it forces me to adapt and think about things differently and see if we can be successful. …
“I have no idea if we can be successful again. I know there are some things that haven't changed. You have to work hard and be committed and care about your players, all that stuff’s the same. But X’s and O’s, you have to be open-minded and willing to adapt.”
Success will not come overnight for Tilton, which struggled to maintain success without O’Neil. He brought in the sharp Ruben Delrosario, a coach with BABC, to be his assistant and help build the program. A roster full of newcomers includes BABC players like Samuel Owusu-Aduomi, Jakare Innocent (Taunton, Mass.) and Wiji Dak (Bedford, N.H.). He likes the depth of his team, which includes very promising underclassmen prospects like Oliver Curley (Kingston, Mass.) and Anthony Daniels (Milford, Mass.).
“I don't know how good we can be with wins and losses because it’s always dependent on who you’re playing,” O’Neil said. “I don’t have a great gauge of how our talent stacks up with other schools. I think we can play well on both ends. This isn’t going to be the least talented team that I’ve ever coached, but we have some really good pieces. The future is bright.”
There’s so much unknown as O’Neil enters his second chapter at Tilton. But he’ll approach it the same way he always has. It’s served him well enough so far.
“I’ve always been most successful when I think of the fight in front of me, totally focused and locked in,” O’Neil said. “Like, I’m sort of looking at the first nine games we play before Christmas, and is there a way we can be competitive in those games?
“Our goal is to win the game in front of us, whatever that amounts to at the end.”
