Billy Mitaritonna was born in 1972 and raised by his parents Mary and Angelo, in the Rosedale, section of Queens. He loved to play baseball and basketball for his father Angelo, who coached so he could teach life lessons using sports. Billy attended St. Pius X elementary school and Archbishop Molloy HS in Queens where he was not good enough to play basketball, but he had a coaching internship as a student manager for the legendary Jack Curran, who has the record for the most varsity basketball wins with 972 in New York State.
After high school, he was recruited to play two years of division 3 basketball for another legend in Jim Graffam at Westbrook College in Portland, Maine. After a family illness, Billy enrolled at St. John's University where he became a part of the Redmen basketball family as a walk-on in his senior year. He fulfilled a lifelong dream playing basketball for St. John's.
Billy is presently a social studies teacher and coach at Half Hollow Hills HS West on Long Island. For the last 20 years, he has coached varsity basketball and varsity softball. Billy coached Stephen Bowen (New York Jets) of the NFL and Tobias Harris (Philadelphia 76ers) of the NBA. Twenty three student athletes went on to play basketball in college with another eighteen went on to play other sports in college. His legacy at Hills West is his lifelong relationships with his players.
Billy was Suffolk County basketball coach of the year in 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2016 as well as Newsday's Long Island coach of the year in 2010.
In 2011, he was given the St. John's University School of Education Teacher of the Year.
In 2018, he self published his memoir entitled Last Of the Redmen, which was a best seller in the basketball and coaching categories on Amazon for November & December of 2018, and January of 2019.
Last of the Redmen: Memoir of a St. John's Basketball Walk-On made it to the Best College Basketball Books of All Time at #8. BookAuthority collects and ranks the best books in the world, and it is a great honor to get this kind of recognition.
He currently lives on Long Island with his wife Kristen and 3 children.
