Talk Back with Coach Pasternack
Joe Pasternack is head coach of the UCSB Men’s Basketball team
There’s a lot of crossover between the UCSB Men’s Basketball team and CBB that folks may not know about. Can you talk about that?
First and foremost, my family and I are CBB members, and both of my kids have had their b’mitzvahs here. Additionally, we have team members in both communities. (Guard) Max Sheldon is on our team, and of course his mom Nancy is CBB’s Co-President. Then there’s (Guard) Ben Shtolzberg, who’s Jewish and whose family is from Israel. He’s been to services at CBB. And then there’s my staff. I have an assistant coach, Derek Glasser, who’s Jewish, as well as Skye Etton, who’s from New Jersey and who is also Jewish.
That’s pretty unusual in college hoops, right?
In college basketball today, there’s not a lot of Jewish coaches or players. When I was at Rosh Hashanah services this year and saw the crowd, I thought: There’s no NBA team in Santa Barbara, no major league baseball or soccer team or football team. But there is a college basketball team where several members from the coaching staff and players are Jewish…and I’d love everybody to know more about that.
You’re also going to be giving your annual presentation on October 29 for the Men of B’nai B’rith (MoBB). Can you give us a preview of what you’ll talk about?
We’ve done these MoBB talk for seven years now. This is my eighth year. What I do is to give an update on our team. I’ll maybe bring a player with me who is Jewish, and who can talk and take questions and who can tell the audience for example what it’s like to be a student at UCSB, what they went through over the past year with everything going on with campus protests. But mostly it’s the inside scoop on the program.
I’ve noticed attendance at the Thunderdome has been increasing for home games, and I see more and more families in the crowds. Is that because you have a strategy of giving away kids tickets?
Yeah, we’ve definitely done that, and that’s really helped. And we have family packages people should know about.
Any future NBA prospects this year on the team?
Well, Ajay Mitchell just got drafted 38th [to Oklahoma City Thunder] and he actually played on Thursday night in the NBA. We do have future NBA players on our team, and it just remains to be seen which ones will make it.
Anything else you want to let the CBB community know about?
A lot of people ask, how can we support the program? For me, as a Jewish head coach, with Jewish assistant coaches and Jewish players, I think the best thing you can do is to buy season tickets. It’s so cheap when you do the math, cheaper than going to the movies and out to dinner. We really hope to have season tickets sold out by our first game.
The 2024-25 UCSB Men’s Basketball season starts Monday, Nov 4 vs San Francisco State. Season tickets start at $130. Click here for more info.
Joe Pasternack will be headlining an Evening with Coach Pasternack with the Men of B’nai B’rith on Tuesday, Nov 29 at 5:30 PM at the Jewish Federation. The event includes dinner from Etty’s Deli prepared by chef and fellow MoBBster, Doug Weinstein. Click here for tickets