A return horse for Pistoia
Pistoia to Calabria
L’ Estra Pistoia Basket 2000 announced that it has reached a three-year agreement with Dante John Calabria who will be the new head coach of the red and white first team ahead of the 2024/25 LBA championship.
Born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 8, 1973, a U.S. national but also a naturalized Italian, he has had an important playing career with long stints in our country. He won an NCAA title in 1993 with North Carolina, then è landed in Italy in Livorno. A few years in Europe between France, Greece and Spain before returning to Italy wearing the jerseys of Trieste, Treviso (where he won the Coppa Italia), Cantù (here he won the Supercoppa), Milan for three seasons, Fortitudo Bologna, Cremona (in LegaDue and also played at PalaCarrara against Pistoia in the winter of 2009) and then ended his career in Sant’Antimo in 2011. He also played 25 games with the Italian national team participating in the 2005 European Championship.
From the summer of 2012 he began his coaching adventure as an assistant coach at the Seahawks of the University of North Carolina Wilmington and later at Montverde Academy, also in college. In’summer 2015 he returned to Italy as head coach of Cus Jonico Taranto in Serie B but, due to extra-coaching reasons, è forced to leave the bench. He starts again in Florida where for two years è on the bench of Keiser University and, in 2018, he is called by Larry Brown as his first assistant at Fiat Torino in LBA. For two seasons, from 2019 to 2021, he returned to the American college world as the first assistant at Barry University in Miami and, for the past two championships, è was the head coach at Bethel Park High School in Pennsylvania.
"The’opportunity’to return to Italy to be able to coach at the highest level in Serie A in a reality like Pistoia è a more than sufficient motivation to accept this call – says the new coach of’Estra, Dante Calabria –. I really enjoy the competition and I am ready to throw myself into this new challenge, moreover; in a league with a high level in which there will be a fight in every single game. It will take some time to study what are the capabilities’ of every single player on our roster but we have height, versatility’ in all roles and a lot of potential".
