Last year, John Sleppy became the Juneau-Douglas High School assistant boys basketball coach.
“First words I told him were I’m proud to be his assistant coach,” he said of his conversation with the head coach.
The new job, though, came with a twist. Two of John’s sons, Justin, 18, and Joel, 17, were students at crosstown rival Thunder Mountain High School. Although Joel didn’t play on the Thunder Mountain Falcons basketball team, Justin did, and that meant the father and son would face off against each other at least four times a season.
“I mean, after the games, it’s weird in the household, like, ‘Should we be celebrating right now?’” Justin recalled.
“We walk on egg shells for the first day or so after a game,” John said. “But with that said though, after a game, we hug it out.”
“I want to see these young men on his team succeed, too,” he added, “because I coached a lot of them in middle school and also in AAU (Amateur Athletic Union, youth basketball league).
In John’s first season as an assistant coach for the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears, the team won the state championship — a first for the hometown team in nearly two decades.
“It was the perfect storm,” John said of the team’s run to the championship. “Our basketball IQ last year was so high, we [coaches] just needed to put everything in the right spot and it fell into the right spot.”
Justin was happy for his dad. He knows how much he loves coaching basketball.
“There are few people I’ve met in Juneau more impassioned about working with these students and these high schoolers and these athletes,” Justin said.
It was this kind of attitude reassured John to accept the JDHS coaching job in the first place.
“When John was thinking about applying for the job, we discussed it as a family,” John’s wife Jeannette said. “And Justin’s response at the time was, ‘I think its awesome, dad, you would be great at this.’ So he was very supportive, even though it meant he would be coaching for the other high school.”
Jeannette would always root for her son, even when Justin was playing against JDHS and her husband.
“Then the first game that we went to when John was coaching against him, it was kind of lighthearted actually. It was competitive, but it was also fun, and you could see that when Justin would make a good play, you’d see John over there secretly cheering for him a little bit,” Jeannette said.
Unexpected growth
Enter this season. John’s still coaching, but Justin is not playing.
Instead, Justin, a lanky forward with over 10 years of basketball experience, was cut from the Thunder Mountain varsity squad.
“This is the first year that I have not played basketball since, you know, forever,” Justin said.
His dad, who was trying out players for the Juneau-Douglas teams around the same time, was powerless over the situation.
“I’m still digesting it, because I really wanted him to be apart of what’s going on at TM this year.”
“I was more worried about telling him I got cut then actually getting cut,” Justin recalled.
TMHS head John Blasco asked Justin if he would be interested in becoming a student assistant, and he accepted. This season, he has filled a variety of needs for the program: revamping the team’s webpage, taking in-game statistics like rebounds, shot selection, turnovers and managing game film. It’s the type of leadership role Justin has embraced his whole life.
“You get to help guide people to make them better players, help them prepare the best for the games they are going into,” Justin said. “In a way, I’m doing similar things to [my dad] with the program over at Thunder Mountain High School.”
Blasco is grateful for the extra help Justin has provided this season.
“He’s been invaluable to us in terms of what he brings from a student assistant, managerial-type position.”
‘Our relationship comes first’
Even though he no longer gets to watch his son suit up for Thunder Mountain, John couldn’t be more proud of his son’s accomplishments.
“He’s unique,” John said. “All five of my children are pretty unique individuals, and this one here is Mr. Leader. I hate to say born leader, but he’s a born leader and not just because he’s my son. I’ve never, ever had anybody say anything derogatory about Justin, ever.”
Justin is a 4.0 student and the president of his high school’s student goverement. He’s in the orchestra and honor society. This past fall, Justin captained the TMHS cross country team and has already been selected as captain of the track and field team this spring.
“He’s very positive and encouraging of others,” TMHS track and cross country coach Scott May said, who also noted his strong work ethic.
John never wanted to tame Justin’s interests — namely basketball — to fit his own.
“My father pushed hard, and I didn’t want to be that kind of father,” John said.
The pressure to succeed in basketball is what drove John away from the game for over a decade when he was younger. After playing one season at Cypress Junior College outside Los Angeles, John wanted nothing to do with basketball. It wasn’t until he settled down in Juneau and started a family that he came back to basketball — this time through coaching and not playing.
“It’s a different side of the coin,” John said.
As members of opposing coaching staffs, father and son Sleppy have learned to leave basketball at the gym.
“We scatch the surface when we have conversations about the basketball teams,” John said. “I come and pick him up at night after my practice from his practice — I’ll say, ‘How was practice?’ and he’ll say, ‘Good,’ and he asks me how practice is and I’ll say, ‘Good,’ and we move on to something else. He’s very loyal to his school and I’m very loyal to mine. But above that, our relationship comes first.”
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.
Michael Penn | Juneau Empire John Sleppy and his son, Justin, 18, photographed at the Thunder Mountain High School gymnasium on Feb. 1. John is an assistant coach for the Juneau-Douglas High School boys varsity team and Justin is a student team manager for the Thunder Mountain High School boys varsity team.
