BABC’s Papile Named to USA Coaching Staff
BOSTON, MA – It was announced by USA Basketball that Boston Amateur Basketball Club (BABC) coach and founder Leo Papile has been named to the coaching staff for the 2012 USA Men’s Developmental Basketball Team. Papile was selected by the USA Basketball Men’s Developmental National Team Committee last month.
Forty-six of the nation’s top young high school players from the classes of 2015 and 2016 have accepted invitations to attend the USA team’s developmental mini-camp on October 6-7 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO. The camp is a training and evaluation session to assemble a team that will compete in the 2013 FIBA Americas U16 Championship in order to qualify for the 2014 FIBA U17 World Championships.
Papile brings years of experience to the USA Basketball staff. At the age of 23, he served as coach of the Quincy Chiefs in the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) from 1977-1978, the youngest professional basketball coach in history. Papile joined the college coaching ranks when he served as an assistant at Suffolk University from 1978-1979 and at Boston University from 1979-1980, where he helped lead the Terrier’s program to an NIT appearance. Papile served as head coach and general manager for the CBA’s Maine Lumberjacks for two seasons from 1980-1982 before returning to the college game as associate head coach at Cleveland State University from 1984-1988, where his teams reached the NCAA Sweet 16 (’86) and the NIT (’87). From 1997-2011 Papile was an NBA front office executive for the Boston Celtics, handling a variety of duties including player scouting and personnel selection.
At the USA camp in October, Papile will coach alongside lead clinician Don Showalter (Iowa City H.S., IA), Terry Dunn (Sierra H.S., CO), LJ Goolsby (KC Run GMC AAU, MO) and James Lane (Doherty H.S., CO).
Since Papile founded the BABC program in 1977, the club has won a remarkable 17 National Championships, has made 28 National Finals along with 37 National Final Fours. BABC’s Junior team is the reigning back to back AAU National Champion and will compete in the highly competitive Nike Elite Youth Basketball League in 2013.