Justin Pispia has been named the new men’s basketball assistant coach at Albright as announced by the men’s basketball program. Coach Pispia will join head coach Rick Ferry and assistant coaches Matt Chalupa and Casey Ayers on the sidelines when the season begins in early November.
Pispia joins the Lions after a five-year stint as a student manager and graduate assistant at West Virgina University and Penn State University, respectively.
Head coach Rick Ferry is looking forward to having Pispia join the staff ahead of the 2025-26 men’s basketball season. “Justin quickly rose to the top of our search in finding a new assistant. Justin has gained a tremendous amount of knowledge coming from division one programs. I am excited to have him on staff and am looking forward to the working alongside him to advance the program.”
For three years, Pispia was a student manager at West Virigina University under Hall of Fame coach Bob Huggins. At West Virgina, Pispia was responsible for assisting the coaching staff in preparing and illustrating scouting reports as well as assisting coaches and players with on court skill development and organizing team dietary intake.
In the three years at West Virgina, Pispia was instrumental in the team making two NCAA Tournament appearances as a three seed and nine seed, respectively.
Over the last two seasons, Pispia was a graduate assistant coach at Penn State University under head coach Mike Rhoades. As a graduate assistant Pispia held many roles including conducting in-depth analysis of opposing teams, monitored student-athlete academic progress, developed athletes on-court skills and developed data-driven insights on team performance using advanced basketball statistics and analytics.
Pispia graduated from West Virgina with a degree in coaching and performance science in athletic coaching education and would later go on to earn a master’s degree in education from Penn State with a focus on organization, development and change.
