Basketball has been a big part of Brian Montanaro’s life for as long as he can remember.
Montanaro had his fair share of playing days in high school and college, but his transition to coaching came quicker than expected in the mid-2000s.
Fast forward to today, and he’s currently in his first season as head coach of the Baldwinsville boys basketball team.
“It’s been a great experience so far,” Montanaro said. “From a strategic side of things, when you graduate seven seniors like we did last year, that’s never an easy stepping stone into the following season and filling roles in the process. But we have a lot of good returning players who have stepped into the role and have been buying into everything we’ve been doing and sharing. They’ve been working their butts off, which is awesome. Our goal is to continually improve, one step at a time. And as long as you put forth that effort, whether it’s on the core, in the classroom or later in your professional life, that’s the attitude that’s going to make you succeed. It might not always show up immediately, but you keep up that consistency and the results will follow. That’s kind of the mindset we have.”
Before Montanaro entered the coaching world, he played at Bishop Ludden. A 2001 graduate, he was part of a 2000-01 Pat Connelly-Gaelic Knights squad that made a run to the New York State Class B semifinals.
“Having Coach Connelly as my coach was awesome,” Montanaro said. “He was a great coach and mentor. I had a very good three-year career there, and Coach Connelly was a big reason for it.”
Montanaro went to play for Daemen College (Daemen University), an NAIA Division II program that recently moved to NCAA Division II.
“I had different offers or (Division I) coaches that reached out to me, but a lot of them were like Ivy League and Patriot League schools where there weren’t really academic or athletic scholarships,” Montanaro said. “I was trying to find the right fit that I thought made sense for me. When I visited Daemen, I visited Canisius on the same trip. Once I stepped onto the Daemen campus, I fell in love with it. I thought the coach was awesome. I got to meet some of the players, I got a tour, and I met some teachers on the visit. It was just the way everyone was so friendly, outgoing, upfront and honest with what they were looking for and how I’d fit into the program. I knew right when I left the campus that that’s where I wanted to go.”
Montanaro was a 6-foot-5, jack-of-all-trades player for Daemen. He played every position for the Wildcats, receiving All-America and conference player of the year honors near the end of his career.
Daemen reached the NAIA Division II Tournament two years in a row, including an appearance in the Elite Eight.
“(College basketball) was an amazing experience,” Montanaro said. “I lived and breathed basketball. I was in the gym all the time, working out, playing, helping, and breaking down game film with the coach. I loved being on the road and pushing the team. I had a great group of kids that I played with, and we pushed each other all the time.”
Montanaro had a chance to play basketball overseas, but the opportunity to coach was calling. That’s when he decided to stay with Daemen for the long haul and also graduated from the college in 2006.
“I had a few offers to coach college,” Montanaro said. “It seemed like most of the coaches in our conference that reached out to me at one point or another said, ‘If you want to coach, we’ll be happy to take you on. We’d love it.’
“Then I had my coach at Daemen say, ‘I think I’m planning on retiring in the next couple of years. I’d love for you to come on, be the assistant coach, and take over the program.’ That was kind of the path that I went toward. I got my master’s degree while I was coaching.”
Soon after coaching at Daemen, Montanaro realized he wanted to start a family with his high school sweetheart, Ashley.
“While I loved coaching, it was hard to justify being on the road all the time,” Montanaro said. “Coaching and not being able to be part of my kids’ lives was not the way I wanted it to be.”
Montanaro took a break from coaching, then got back into it when his kids started playing basketball.
He and his family moved to Syracuse in 2016. From there, Montanaro and his family became involved with the Baldwinsville Sting, a youth basketball program within the area.
“I got involved with it from there and then, with my knowledge and background and having both boys and girls in the program, it was a natural fit,” Montanaro said.
Montanaro coached some of the Baldwinsville Sting squads that his kids were on. In 2021, he took over as president of the entire program for a few years.
Right before the 2024-25 season, an opportunity arose to be an assistant under head coach Tom Brown for the Bees’ varsity squad.
Montanaro credits his time with the Baldwinsville Sting for his transition to coaching high school basketball.
In the midst of working on his physical education certification, Montanaro was already a substitute teacher within the Baldwinsville Central School District.
Coaching at the same time made sense for Montanaro.
“(The Baldwinsville Sting) kind of led its way into me getting into the school and the varsity program and a unique position to help build a basketball culture,” Montanaro said. “At B’ville, that hasn’t always been here and that’s our goal over the next few years here is to keep building that connection from the ground up with a youth level up through the high school program.”
When Montanaro stepped in as the next head coach at Baldwinsville for the 2025-26 season, the pipeline between the Sting and the high school program solidified even more than before.
“I think that pipeline is huge for helping with that culture and building it,” Montanaro said. “There are a lot of great parents who volunteer and help with coaching with the Sting program. Being able to be connected to them and all the players, knowing me from seeing me at Sting (games and practices) and seeing me at tryouts and summer camps, and now seeing me there and then coming to the games and seeing me coaching, they can see the same things I’m teaching (on varsity). There might be some tweaks and a little bit more advanced, but teaching them that this is what you’re building toward. It’s been extremely helpful teaching my own kids and their teams, and they see it at both levels and see that coaching style. I’m trying to bridge it all with that. I think it’s great for the program and something that’s only going to be beneficial in the long run.”
Montanaro’s own children are following in his footsteps. His oldest daughter, Lilly, is on the Bees’ JV girls basketball team. Maximus is one of Baldwinsville’s modified basketball squads, and some of his kids currently play for the Sting.
Montanaro’s varsity squad played in the Rome Free Academy Invitational over the weekend. As the Bees trek through the season and beyond, Montanaro will be there to guide them.
“There are a few things we talk about regularly in practice,” he said. “One is that it is all right to make mistakes. It’s just a matter of how you learn from those mistakes and how you keep building on them every day. It’s about a growth mindset and always getting better each day. As long as you bring a full effort every day, we’re going to get better. You’ve got to push yourself and the person next to you.
“We’ve been using the term ‘hive mentality,’ and as the Bees, we’re all in this together. We’re one team. We’re one hive and one drive. We have one singular goal, so it’s about us building together. It’s not about one person always standing out and only doing things. It’s about what can I do to make the player next to them better, which is going to ultimately make me better and the team better. Having that consistency is what you need to really improve and build over the course of the season or over the course of a few years in your career.”
