Las Positas Coach Giacomazzi A High-Energy Success Story

By Mike Wood

Watching him on the basketball court, it’s obvious James Giacomazzi has energy to spare.
It’s all action and constant motion for the Las Positas men’s basketball coach. He’s on his feet practically all game and his chair might as well be folded up and put away.
“He’s always been running and stomping his feet, clapping his hands,” said his best friend, Allan Hancock-Santa Maria head coach Tyson Aye, with a chuckle.
The tempo and energy has been nonstop this season for all the Hawks, in the midst of a sizzling 12-game win streak after a tough season-opening overtime loss to Butte on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer.
The Hawks were ranked 10th in the California Community College Men’s Basketball Coaches Association Dec. 7 poll, and should move up after beating No. 8 West Valley 86-77 on Dec. 8. They host Redwoods on Dec. 30 to close out 2021 before opening Coast Conference play Jan. 5 at Ohlone.
Those who have learned from him have been known to emulate him, at times even the on-court mannerisms.
“I actually developed his personality as a coach,” said Jonathan James, who served as an assistant to Giacomazzi at Cosumnes River and Las Positas, and is currently the head coach at Cosumnes River.
The first time the friends were pitted against one another as head coaches, it was if there were dual Giacomazzis.
“His wife has video of that game and we have the same mannerisms and same motions; it’s pretty funny,” James said. “And that's who he is on the court. In person, away from it he is very personable.”
That video gets a lot of mileage. Giacomazzi added: “It popped up on Facebook this week, as a memory from five years ago,” he said with a hearty laugh.
Having extra energy is important. He’s not only head men’s basketball coach, but is the Hawks athletic director and is president of the CCCMBCA.
“He is someone who commands the presence of the whole room, what you call a magnetic personality,” said Josh McCarver, who played for Giacomazzi at Cosumnes River before heading to Sacramento State. “It’s easy to play hard for him, since you feel indebted and you see how hard he works with you and you feel the least I can do is play hard for him.”
Giacomazzi is in his fifth season as head coach at Las Positas, where he has overseen 19 players transfer on scholarship, including three to Division I programs. Nine of his Hawks players have been first-team all-state.
Logging 22 seasons as a community college head coach, his story is of someone who has learned from some of the most enduring and successful names in the coaching ranks, carved out a style all his own and positively transforms the lives of others.
“He teaches you to be a good man,” said Tony Gill, who played for Giacomazzi at Cosumnes River, then went on to play at University of the Pacific and is on the verge of attaining his medical degree. “He teaches you structure, discipline, work ethic and sacrifice for those around you.”
While being real and honest.
“He’s genuine, there ain't nothing fake about him,” Aye said. “He genuinely cares about other people. You are either born with it or not.”
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
Giacomazzi’s journey to becoming a basketball coach was obvious, growing up around basketball. He watched with interest as his father, Jim, coached the boys team at now-closed San Carlos High School, including a memorable 28-1 championship season.
“I have been around it my whole life,” he said.
As he began his playing career, Giacomazzi began meeting several important individuals who dedicated their working lives to coaching. At Washington High in Fremont, there was Guin Boggs, who led the Huskies to a state championship appearance in Giacomazzi’s sophomore year. The two recently caught up on a phone call from North Carolina, where Boggs moved after a lengthy coaching career that also included Granite Bay High and the William Jessup women.
“A great influence on my love of the game, the passion and the attention to detail,” Giacomazzi recalled. “He’s one of the most competitive people I’ve met. He’d be competitive playing marbles.”
In one of his first games, Giacomazzi recalls showboating with a dunk, which didn’t thrill Boggs.
“I dunked it and played to the crowd a bit,” Giacomazzi said. “He yanked me and had me sit down, and said ‘We don’t do that here.’”
His next stop was San Jose City College, the start of a connection with legendary coach Percy Carr, who coached the Jaguars for an incredible 45 years and over 900 career victories.
Giacomazzi met Carr when he was 17, beginning a long connection. His coach ended up hiring him as assistant and was a groomsman at Giacomazzi’s wedding. Giacomazzi pays a visit every chance he can with the man from whom he learned competitiveness, work ethic, dedication and loyalty.
“He is one of the most loyal persons you will ever meet,” he said. “He treated me like a son.”
He then realized his Division I dreams at UC Riverside, where he earned all-conference honors as a senior. Upon graduation, he was returning to Fremont and was set to be an assistant coach under Trevor Hoppe at Ohlone College. Until Coach Carr came calling again. Literally.
Carr got wind of his plans and called Hoppe. “He said: I need him to come with me, I need him to coach at San Jose with me,” Giacomazzi said.
He roomed at San Jose State, and developed a friendship with Tyson Aye that is strong to this day. It was another key relationship with a great coaching family. Aye’s father is Denny Aye, a 40-year coaching legend at Chabot, Columbia and Fresno City. His brother Devin is the head coach at San Jose City College. James and Tyson enjoyed everything basketball even though finances were lean.
“We were rubbing nickels together, working every camp you can; we would buy a burrito and share it. Everything would be halves, and we became great friends,” Giacomazzi recalled.
Tyson and James have been best friends to this day. Each man is father to two daughters and they are godfathers to each other’s girls.
“Our wives are close, our daughters are close, we just spent Thanksgiving together,” Tyson Aye said of the extended friendship.
The journey moved on to Sacramento when Giacomazzi became head coach at Cosumnes River, where he went to win two Big 8 conference titles in 11 years.
His first move there was to retain longtime CRC assistant Charles Wilder. “He was a huge positive influence in my life and a great, great man,” Giacomazzi said of Wilder, who passed away in 2019.
In his head coaching role, Giacomazzi began mimicking some of Carr’s lively mannerisms on court and then developed his own style, which early on included a suit and tie.
“I wore a suit and tie for a lot of years, but I am a lot more comfortable in the polo shirt,” he said. “I would sweat like a dog through those suits. It’s because of the way I am. I play the game from the sideline.”
From there he took on the Las Positas job in June 2015, where he has coached the Hawks to 20+-win seasons and playoff berths every season.
MAKING AN IMPACT
As a head coach he has impacted others, and not only players. In getting the Las Positas job, he wanted to bring James over from Cosumnes River, where the latter had been an assistant.
“I look at Gio as a mentor, he was the one who gave me an opportunity to start coaching at the community college level,” James said. “Everything I had known — and I have grown since — but literally all his knowledge, all the tools that you have today come from that.”
In coaching, you are often dealing with players upset over lack of playing time. One of those was Josh McCarver, a 6-8 freshman from Green Valley High in Henderson, Nevada. Early on he was so upset with his usage at Cosumnes River he called his mother trying to get out of the school.
“I thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread,” said McCarver, who now is a videographer in the Las Vegas area after playing professionally in France.
He said the coach called him for a discussion, explaining he owed it to his family to do his best job and then went over McCarver’s game, which showed plenty of flaws.
“There was a turnover, missed jump shot, poor shot selections … and he asked me, ‘if you were the coach and your job was to win, would you play you?’”
It was a defining moment for McCarver.
“That lit a fire under me and I stepped it up because no one ever called me out so bluntly,” he said.
“Not often in life can you pinpoint a moment when your trajectory changed for the better. But this was one of those.”
Going literally the extra mile impressed Tony Gill, who planned to go to American River College after a standout career at Oakmont High in Roseville.
“He found out and immediately drove to my school, and said ‘I need to talk to you right now,’” Gill said. A 40-minute conversation convinced Gill to go to CRC, even though the drive was not ideal.
“I was making a 40-minute commute, and it was even worse than that sometimes,” Gill said. “The thing about coach Gio is I was honest with him from day one and he was honest with me and that is why it worked so well with him,” Gill said. “‘Trust me,’ he said, ‘I won't steer you wrong.’ That was pretty much what I needed to hear.”
Gill ended up a first-team all-state player in his second season at CRC and went on to play at University of the Pacific and in Europe. His world travels then took him to St. George’s University, the top medical school in the Caribbean, to get his medical degree. He’s now at San Joaquin General Hospital in French Camp.
EVERLASTING FRIENDSHIPS
The mentoring is reciprocal. Gill mentors Anand Hundal, a former Manteca High star who then played for Giacomazzi at Las Positas. Hundal became an all-state player at LPC and went on to Seattle University and played professionally in Albania. Earning a degree in financing, he is working in that field in Portland.
Around the time he arrived at Las Positas, he got a Division I offer for Houston Baptist, but turned it down to honor his commitment to Giacomazzi, which made a profound impression on the coach. Hundal said that decision was the right one, so he could go to a Division I school when he was ready.
“He has passion in coaching and passion in players,” Hundal said of his coach. “He wants everyone to move to the next level and is doing a great job at it getting players into that position. He's the best at it.”
Giacomazzi enjoys rekindling these old connections, and when it happens, things can get loud. As they did during an unexpected late-night meeting at a Sacramento hotel lobby recently between Giacomazzi, Gill and Hundal.
“It was pretty late there, and security was trying to keep us quiet, but you can’t be whispering and talking with coach Gio,” Hundal said.
Always giving it 100 percent, even at a chance reunion with former players.
“You hear that saying that the hardest working people tend to be the luckiest,” McCarver said. “That runs true for him very much.”