In Bristol, Rutgers is almost as popular as UConn— thanks to native son Steve Pikiell and his big family

Maddie Pikiell was only two months old when her mother put her in a baby carrier and walked around the track above the Stony Brook University gymnasium. The men’s basketball team, coached by her godfather Steve Pikiell, played below.

“She was a December baby, born right in the middle of basketball season,” her father Tim Pikiell said. “The arena was empty. Plenty of space to walk around. Similar to most of Steve’s stops. Nobody was there at the beginning and by the time he left, the place was packed.”

Maddie is 17 now and she’s still going to her godfather’s games. When Steve took the Rutgers job in 2016, the Pikiells – Tim and his wife Deb and their kids, sometimes Tim’s brothers and sisters and their families and friends – would head down to New Jersey to the then-Rutgers Athletic Center and have their pick of seats. The year before, Rutgers had won seven games and had gone 1-17 in the Big Ten.

These days – forget it. Tim has five season tickets and Feb. 23, he and Maddie, his cousin Father Joe Crowley, who grew up next door to the Pikiells in Bristol and Bob McMahon, the former Thomaston girls’ basketball coach who is one of Tim’s friends – were there, along with 8,000 other fans for the 27th consecutive sellout against Michigan at Jersey Mike’s Arena.

This season was the first that all the games were sold out; since Pikiell has been head coach, Rutgers has had 49 sellouts. In 2021, the Scarlet Knights made it to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1991 and won their first NCAA Tournament game in 38 years, a 60-56 victory over Clemson. Last year, they made it to the tournament again but lost to Notre Dame in the First Four in double overtime.

Pikiell’s ascent has been slow but steady. He has succeeded in making the Scarlet Knights relevant – this season beating No. 1 Purdue, Michigan State in front of a sea of Rutgers fans at Madison Square Garden, and Indiana twice. They will face Michigan in the first round of the Big Ten tournament Thursday.

All the way, his family has been along for the ride.

“I guess you have no choice when you’re family,” Steve said, laughing. “The good times and the bad times – they’ve always been there. My parents were there when they were alive. It’s just awesome.”

Tim – 18 months younger than Steve – played with Steve at UConn in the late 80s-early 90s. He has seen it all. He has been to almost every Rutgers home game for the past seven years and many away games. He has organized bus trips of 80 people to go to games and there are usually some Bristol folks in the stands at Jersey Mike’s Arena.

Though Bristol is UConn territory ( even more so now due to the influence of freshman Donovan Clingan), there is a small island of Rutgers red in the city where the Pikiells grew up, on Circle Street. If you go to a Bristol Central boys or girls basketball game – Tim’s son Joey and his daughter Julia both play – you’re likely to see a Rutgers shirt in the crowd.

“It’s a cool thing – everybody kind of feels a connection to it,” said Bristol Central principal Pete Wininger, who played at St. Paul in Bristol with Tim and Steve. “You even see it when there’s supposed to be maroon here in our gym.”

McMahon, who lives in Bristol, remembered when one day when the Pikiells and their friends told the owner of a sports bar in town they were coming to watch a Rutgers game there. They expected 20 people at the bar; 60 showed up and the kitchen and wait staff was overwhelmed.

“We took the place over that night,” McMahon said.

“It’s not a big place,” Tim said.

“After that, [the owner] probably woke up in the middle of the night seeing red and black,” McMahon said.

How many Rutgers fans are there in Bristol? Tim defers to Maddie.

“What do you think, Maddie? 300?” he asked.

“A lot more now than there were six years ago,” Maddie said. “I’d say easily 300-400.”

“When you factor all the kids’ friends and families, they’ve gotten to know us and through us, Steve, there’s a big following,” Tim said. “The Crowleys have 18-20 grandkids, there’s 18 grandkids on our side. You multiply all their friends. It’s a lot.”

The Pikiells grew up next door to the Crowleys, their cousins. There were 17 kids – nine Pikiells and eight Crowleys – and they all played sports – baseball in the backyard, basketball in the driveway or at the nearby Forestville Boys Club.

Steve was seventh of the nine Pikiell kids. He remembers working at the A&P in Farmington to help pay his tuition to go to St. Paul in Bristol.

“Bristol is kind of a blue-collar town and I grew up in a blue-collar family,” Steve said. “We lived in a little tiny Cape with a lot of bunk beds.

“I kind of grew up in that work environment: if you want something, you have to work for it.”

He went to UConn in 1987, he said, back when it “wasn’t sexy.”

“Not like it is now,” he said. “Blue-collar. Hadn’t won. Coach [Jim] Calhoun was a blue-collar guy.”

Steve has brought the same approach to each of his college coaching stops – Central Connecticut (which went to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 2000 when Steve was an assistant), George Washington, Stony Brook (his first head coaching job) and then to Rutgers.

“Watching the way he’s grown these programs, we couldn’t be more proud of him and excited for his success,” Deb Pikiell said. “He is just a great guy. To see a good guy have so much success is just awesome. We’re happy to celebrate with him.”

So are a lot of people these days.

On Feb. 23, a long line of students had formed earlier that day, waiting outside Jersey Mike’s Arena to get tickets. There were people looking for tickets outside the arena and cars backed up in a traffic jam off the exit.

Inside, the student section was packed and loud, a few wearing banana suits, bouncing beach balls around, “R-U”-ing with the fans across the way. When Rutgers took a 13-3 lead over Michigan, the noise from the crowd almost blew the roof off.

“When he first started, there was a lot of empty seats,” said Father Joe. “Then going with Tim and others, you saw how the wins started coming and the recruiting, the excitement on the campus and watching how Steve just does his work. His craft, his coaching ability, or his way of rallying the whole university around the program, it’s crazy to watch.”

Tim, who has his own general contracting business and is able to work his schedule around Rutgers games, leaves his house in mid-afternoon for home games. Joey and Julia sometimes aren’t able to go to games due to their own basketball commitments; Maddie is a swimmer, so she is free in the winter. They often meet up with another local guy who lives in New Jersey – Tommy Monnerat, who grew up in Waterbury and whose brother Mark coached Tim and Steve in high school – for dinner, then they all head over to the game.

The Michigan game was rough for the Pikiells. Lots of hype. Big expectations. Rutgers went up big early, Michigan came roaring back and the Scarlet Knights had no answer. In the waning moments of the 58-45 loss, fans started leaving. Father Joe good-naturedly stopped a few who tried to step around him: “Where are you going? The game’s not over.”

Tim was quiet on the ride home.

“For Tim, it’s more than just being a fan,” his wife said. “You know the depth of the losses when it’s your brother. It’s not just, ‘Oh, my team lost.’ It’s a little bit more painful than that.”

After dropping off Father Joe and McMahon at St. Thomas Church in Thomaston, Tim and Maddie rolled into their driveway in Bristol around 1:30 a.m. Father Joe had 7 a.m. Mass. Maddie had to be at school at 7. Tim probably would only sleep a few hours before getting up and starting his day.

This is routine for the Pikiells.

Deb and Maddie went to the Penn State game in State College a few days later, where Rutgers staged an incredible comeback and won. The whole family went to Senior Night on Sunday and Rutgers, which has been in a tailspin of sorts the last few weeks, struggled offensively and lost to Northwestern, leaving its NCAA Tournament status up in the air.

“Since the Michigan State game, things have not gone well,” Tim said. “It’s always a battle every year. The Big Ten is a brutal conference. They cannibalize each other. You know you’re going to have your ups and downs. Right now is obviously not the time to be having the downs.”

The Pikiells will not be in Chicago Thursday for the Big Ten tournament because Joey has a state tournament game Wednesday night. If Rutgers wins, Tim will most likely fly out for the next game.

It’s important for Tim to be there. Their parents went to all their games. He and Deb go to all their kids’ games.

“What better way to show your support than to be in the stands,” Tim said. “Being physically present is a lot better than watching it on TV for me.

“[Steve]’s very grateful. He usually calls me [after the game] when I’m right around Waterbury. It’s important for me to show support. Plus, I like being there.”