DiNola Family Sticks Together

His teammates on the Navy lacrosse team give sophomore defenseman Jordan DiNola grief because he always seems to be on the phone with a family member, either his parents or older brothers Seth and Dustin.

"He's real close with his family, he's always talking with them," said sophomore midfielder Matt Guido, a close friend. "They talk so much I think they even shortened their names. It's 'ma' and 'da' and 'D' and 'Se' and 'Jor.' "

It's hard to blame him, given what his family is like. Both parents are educators. His mother is a principal's assistant at a middle school near the family's home in Ballston Lake, N.Y.

The father is the athletic director for the Schenectady school system. Before that, he taught English and coached basketball, baseball, golf, track, softball and lacrosse in his 32-year teaching career. He was the Schenectady teacher of the year three times.

The oldest brother, Dustin, turned down Harvard to attend the Naval Academy; he graduated in 2003. Seth DiNola attended Navy after being recruited by most of the top lacrosse programs. He graduated last year.

Jordan DiNola, meantime, has become Navy's top defenseman as a sophomore. He faces a strong challenge when the unseeded Midshipmen (11-3) travel to face No. 8 Georgetown (10-2) in an NCAA tournament first-round game today at 3:30 p.m. He likely will guard sophomore Brendan Cannon, Georgetown's leading scorer. Cannon has 41 points (13 goals, 28 assists); the next-highest scorer has 22 points.

DiNola is so close with his brothers that when coaches recruited him during his senior year at Albany Academy, they wondered aloud whether they were wasting their time because DiNola was going to Navy no matter what.

In the end, he visited Notre Dame, Duke, Georgetown and Navy. After returning from his final visit -- to Notre Dame -- DiNola announced he was attending the Naval Academy.

"I kept an open mind," he said. "I liked all the schools, but I knew about it here, and I liked it."

In some ways, however, he differed from his brothers. They played soccer; he signed up for a youth football team in the fourth grade by forging his parents' signatures.

Dustin played attack. Seth was an attackman and goalie. Jordan has always played defense. When Jordan said he was going to the Naval Academy, initially he thought his parents were disappointed. Gary DiNola said he merely was trying to make sure his son had made the decision for the right reasons.

Gary DiNola has been teaching lessons to high school students for years. Schenectady is a blue-collar city. It was hit hard by layoffs from the General Electric plant in the 1980s and 1990s. Gary DiNola spent several years as a basketball coach and principal at Schenectady High, an inner-city school. Honors students mingled in the hallways with members of a gang called "the Cleanaz."

He had a few rules for his basketball teams. In his first season, in 1995-96, he cut nine of the returning varsity players because of disciplinary problems. His assistants confiscated Walkmen and hats his players wore in class. His players ran one lap for every minute they were late for school.

The teams also had success. They won a state title in 1998; several of DiNola's players have played in college, and former Texas star James Thomas has played in the NBA.

Jordan DiNola was first exposed to athletics when, as a child, he was the waterboy for the University of Albany men's basketball teams. His father was an assistant there for five seasons in the early 1990s; in three of the years, the team made the NCAA Division III tournament.

"You can tell they've been in locker rooms and around people who put the team before themselves," said Navy Coach Richie Meade.

And despite talking to his parents and brothers regularly, it's not quite the same.

"As part of plebe summer he had to tell them what he did," said Gary DiNola. "Well, that was the summer that Jordy helped me cut 15 cords of wood, then built a roof for the barn, then built two brick walkways all by himself. I was thinking the other day when I was outside how much we miss having him around. He's a good kid."