Lisa Gedaka makes South Jersey history in Gloucester Catholic girls basketball victory
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When Lisa Gedaka debuted as the girls basketball coach at her alma mater in 1989, she could hardly imagine that she would still be pacing and shouting instructions from courtside 34 years later.
Yet, there she was Tuesday, guiding her beloved Gloucester Catholic Rams to a 65-19 win over Clayton in a Tri-County Conference Classic Division matchup.
The Rams have won so many games during Gedaka’s amazing three-plus decade run, but this one – No. 683 – stands out because it put their legendary coach in a league of her own.
Gedaka is now the winningest girls basketball coach in South Jersey history, surpassing legendary former Wildwood coach Dave Troiano, who guided his Warriors to a 682-326 record over 39 seasons.
“I’m thankful – thankful for the love and passion for this game that I had at such a young age that’s taken me through a playing career and 34 years of coaching,” Gedaka said. “I’m thankful for every kid that came through this program who has given me their heart, their passion and desire, and every coach who has sat beside me through the years.
“I never imagined that I’d be here this long. It’s truly been a blessing. I think of all the players I’ve been so fortunate to coach. Basketball has been very good to me.”
Gedaka’s record stands at 684-205, a .769 winning percentage, but for South Jersey’s new standard bearer it’s never been about the wins.
“Anyone who knows me knows I could care less about how many points I scored when I played, or how many wins that I have as a coach,” she said. “To me, the wins are about the players I coached and the assistants I’ve had sitting next to me.”
Troiano is regarded as a coaching icon, so when Gedaka tied him with her team’s win over Salem Tech last Tuesday, she paused to reflect on the man she was about to supplant.
She got to know Troiano well once Wildwood shifted from the Cape-Atlantic League to the Tri-County Conference and their teams started playing regularly.
“That’s when I realized what a great, special man that is,” Gedaka said of Troiano, who retired in 2017 after guiding his Wildwood teams to four state titles and nine sectional crowns over four decades. “As a coach, you want to be a role model and do it the right way. Dave did that, and I want to emulate that.”
Gedaka is garnering the same level of respect from her contemporaries.
“Over the years I’ve been involved in girls basketball, I’ve always had a lot of respect for her because of how well she runs a program,” Woodstown coach Brandon Lyons said. “They play basketball the right way. To beat Gloucester Catholic with Lisa as the head coach is an accomplishment. It’s an extremely well-coached team.”
Gedaka’s coaching career almost didn’t happen.
She was just 23, fresh out of Villanova University and launching a nursing career when the girls basketball job opened at Gloucester Catholic, her alma mater. She hadn’t thought about coaching, but decided, why not?
Although just a few years older than some of her players, she won her very first game at home against Edgewood (now Winslow) and immediately started to establish her reputation as an intense, passionate coach.
“I was much crazier than I am now,” Gedaka laughed. “Early on, I had to make sure the passion and drive that I had was harnessed in the right way. I’m very emotional as a player and coach, but as a coach you’ve got to make sure you’re not overly emotional because you want to keep your team under control. You want to win as a young coach, but my biggest thing early on was learning that winning isn’t everything, so thank goodness for maturity and growth.”
Gedaka, an inductee into both the Camden and Gloucester County Sports Halls of Fame, has been coaching for so long that it’s easy to forget what a great player she was before grabbing the clipboard permanently.
At Gloucester Catholic, she scored more than 2,000 career points and still ranks as the program’s second all-time leading scorer behind Lisa Cermignano, whom she coached. The Rams won three state titles during her playing career and she was named the Al Carino Girls Basketball Club of South Jersey Player of the Year in 1984.
She enjoyed a stellar playing career at Villanova that saw her earn Big East Conference Player of the Year honors as a senior in 1988 – the last Nova player to win that award until current Nova star Maddy Siegrist won it last year. She led the Wildcats to a 91-30 record during her four years there, was inducted into the Big Five Hall of Fame in 1995 and became just the fifth player in program history to have her number (25) retired in 2002.
Her college coach, former Villanova women’s coach Harry Perretta, is her greatest coaching influence.
“He always taught me that the one thing you control as a player is how hard you play, and I try to instill that in my players,” Gedaka said. “He’s been a great mentor, just calling and coming to practice and giving me ideas. He’s a great friend and has always kept me grounded.”
It was Parretta who convinced Gedaka to keep coaching when she considered stepping away after the birth of her first child, Mary.
“He said, ‘Lisa, I’m not sure if you’d ever get back into coaching,’ so I stayed,” she said.
The rest is history.
Sophomore Katherine Lange, a Philadelphia resident who transferred to Gloucester Catholic before the start of the current school year, said Gedaka is the coach she wanted to play for.
Lange is the daughter of former Washington Township great Karen Healey.
“I just think it’s the program that Lisa runs, the system, the legacy and the Gloucester Catholic family, in general – it’s a family-oriented school, a great school and I just think if you want to be coached, if you want to be successful learning the game and understanding it, she’s a great person for that,” Lange said.
Gedaka and her husband, Ken, have four children – Mary, Megan, Madison and Michael, who is now a freshman at Gloucester Catholic. She coached all three of her daughters and Mary followed her mother’s footsteps and went on to play for Parretta at Villanova.
“My proudest moment was her first game at Villanova and when she stepped out on the court and I watched her play,” Gedaka said. “I thought, ‘She got it – she worked so hard, played hard and did so well and I thought, ok I did my job as a coach in teaching her how to play hard.’”
Juggling her nursing career and raising a large family while coaching was a challenge, and Gedaka isn’t quite sure how she managed, especially when the kids were younger.
“It was incredibly hard and I knew it when I was going through it,” she said. “Looking back on it you wonder how because you’re rushing to get the kids to daycare and you’re picking them up and bringing three or four of them to practice and managing that, and then homework. I just kept saying to myself, ‘Keep going – one minute at a time.’”
With 34 years and 683 wins under her belt, Gedaka isn’t sure how much longer she’ll keep at it, but she’ll know when it’s time to step away. She said it’s her love of teaching, not the games, that keeps her going.
“I’ll never go to another school,” Gedaka said. “This is home. Thank you to Gloucester Catholic for giving me an opportunity at such a young age. I take it year by year, making sure that I’m in it for the right reasons. I know if I’m still pumped and ready to go to practice every day, I know I still want to coach.”
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