It has been less than two months since ED MANETTA was named Dir of Sports Programming for Barclays Center, but he has wasted no time getting down to business. Manetta has been loading up the calendar with boxing matches, college basketball games and other special events to expand the venue’s repertoire and raise its profile in the tri-state area. But the one thing Manetta speaks more passionately about than his career is his family -- wife DEBRA; daughters LINDSEY and NICOLE; and son JAMES. His oldest daughter just finished her freshman year at Sacred Heart Univ., the middle is graduating from Mamaroneck High School in a couple weeks and will head to Indiana Univ. in the fall, while his son is focused on basketball and finishing up eighth grade.
DANCIN' AWAY WITH MY HEART: This weekend is a little bit special actually. My middle daughter is having her senior prom, so like dutiful parents, we will be there on Friday evening taking pictures and sharing in all the moments with our children and probably talking about when we went to prom many years ago. That will be very exciting. The good news is that her date actually is a young man whose father I’ve been coaching with for many years. He’s a wonderful young man and will be going to the Univ. of Michigan. So they are both leaving the East to become Big Ten-ers. It’s something you’re very proud of, obviously to see your children graduate -- it goes fast. It’s amazing how as you get older and life goes a lot quicker. I remember when they were born, and coaching them and now look at this they are off to college.
EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM: I’m an early riser, and maybe it’s just kind of habit. We’re usually up going somewhere, whether it’s sporting events or my oldest daughter is very involved in music and theatre, so we’re usually off to somewhere to do something. (My wife and I) do try to have coffee together on Saturday morning and plan out the weekend. We also try to do a little bit of what we call domestic chores and get caught up, but most of the weekends are busy with the kids and taking them to different places and attending different events. It will be kind of quiet next year when two of them are out of the house but I’m sure my son will keep us busy.
PUT YOUR DUKES UP: This Saturday I’m looking forward to a fight that we’re having here at Barclays Center, which will be on HBO. That will be taking up pretty much my Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening. The fights go quite late, past midnight. We live up in Larchmont, which is about 30 minutes from the city in Westchester County. What’s great is I can take the train into Grand Central Station and then jump right on the subway so I don’t have to go through all the hassles of driving and sitting in traffic. But we’ve got a nice card of fights and the young man that is in the main bout actually is from Long Island, CHRIS ALGIERI. Actually he went to my high school, believe it or not, in Huntington.
FULL-COURT PRESS: My son will be away this weekend playing in an AAU tournament on Saturday and Sunday. He plays point guard for the N.Y. Gauchos. My wife will be following him and I will be checking in from the boxing arena as he plays his games and she will give me updates. If I’m traveling with him or she’s traveling with him, sometimes we’re together with him, but otherwise we’re updating each other all the time. They’re going to be traveling to Maryland this time. But everybody will be back together on Sunday.
ALL IN THE FAMILY: We always try to end up together as a family on Sunday evenings. We think that’s really important, be it dinner or going out or something. Once in a while, I’ll throw out my Italian recipe of sauce and meatballs that I’ve captured over the years from my grandmother and mother, which nobody else knows about. But with this Sunday being Father’s Day, we’ll probably end up going to church and then out to the beach and my sister’s on Long Island, where we will have a bar-b-que. We’ll gather the kids and cousins and some other relatives and the uncles will all stand around a say, “We made it this far, let’s keep going!”
