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Patrick Amico was a team manager, video coordinator and special assistant for the Utah Valley University Wolverines. He worked in the NBA Summer League and coached the Nevada Desert Dogs in the NABP. He is now the head assistant coach for the Westminster College Griffins in Salt Lake City, Utah in the RMAC in NCAA DII coached by Norm Parrish. I’d like to thank coach Amico for sharing his basketball journey with The Cannon Network.

“I love this game. I started out coaching AAU for my father’s AAU team and took it over in 2006. We were very successful and had a lot of D1 kids and a few pros. I always thought that was going to be my way in, but I did not have my degree. After getting married I finished my degree and went down to the live events in Las Vegas and bought a coaching pass. I brought 100 resumes and started handing them out. I was lucky enough to be sitting next to the UVU staff one day and after talking to them I knew that’s where I wanted to go.

I turned down two NAIA assistant jobs and a D3 assistant job to go there as what I thought was going to be a GA. A few days before school started, they told me they did not have the money for a GA but I could be a manager and just take random classes. I lived in the gym. I was there rebounding and working guys out at 6am and other guys wanted to come in around midnight.

I did not care; my wife and 3 boys were 4 hours away and I was not going to waste a second. The next two years I was their Video Coordinator. We were killing it. We set back to back to back school record’s for wins and went to 3 straight post seasons. Because of our success our head coach went on to BYU to be their head coach. All 3 assistants, DOBO, and strength coach also moved on for bigger jobs.

I tried to get the DOBO job at UVU but it did not work out so I was jobless. I was home for about a month when I got a call from the Head Coach at Westminster, Norm Parrish. He said that he got a call from Todd Phillips and that I worked my butt off for them and that he was not happy to see me go so he wanted to try and help me out. It was such a blessing.

It was hard to leave home again because we had a new baby but its been so worth it. Im now in my second year at Westminster and was just promoted to head assistant. My family still lives in Southern Utah about 4 hours away but I’m able to be home a lot more now. “