“Life Academy Wins League Title”
Tri-Lakes Tribune, March 9, 2011
by Mark Mahan, Contributing Writer
 

    With a win over Pikes Peak Prep March 3 the Life Academy Minutemen clinched the Colorado Springs League title, going undefeated with a record of 8-0 in league play and ending the year with an impressive 11-4 record.
    It was a dominating league season for the Minutemen, who never allowed any league opponent to get within 40 points of them when the game ended.
    “You have a school--Life Academy--of less than 20 kids competing against schools that are 10 or 20 times the size of us,” said head coach Paul Palmisano.  “So to do something like this is almost ‘Hoosierish’.  It was like the movie.”
    Life Academy earned its great record because of some quality players that would have fit in great in Normal Dale’s system.
    Mark Palmisano, who double-doubled every game, was named the CSL Most Valuable Player, while teammates Antoine Wilson and JoJo Benson were each named First Team All-Conference.
   “I’m proud of the way the kids handled themselves,” Palmisano said.  “I’ve gotten a lot of compliments from other athletic directors.  We handled the league well and were undefeated, but to have parents of other teams, ADs, and other coaches come up and compliment us after games, that says a lot on how the kids were viewed.”
    Truly, that right there might mean more to the kids and coaches of Life Academy than any trophy or plaque ever could.

Minutemen Triumph

 Reprinted from April 2010 Life Lines newsletter

    Life Academy’s boys’ basketball team went from being an underdog to being a top dog with nine wins and five losses this season.

    The team began the season with the loss of four-fifths of the starters.  Following last year’s 4-14 losing season, the Minutemen faced a daunting challenge.  We were blessed to recruit several first-year players to fill our bench, and after resetting the entire season to reflect the necessity of our “club team” status, Coach Palmisano tapped one or two alumni per game to allow us to compete.

    Mark Palmisano’s 20.9 points-per-game average led the way to the Minutemen’s victorious season.  Additionally, he contributed 12.1 rebounds and 4.3 blocks per game.

    Greg Luebbe and Caleb Carswell got involved in the offense this year, but they were the mainstays of the defensive effort.  Carswell averaged over seven rebounds per game, and Luebbe controlled thirteen rebounds in one outing.  

    The bench play of Jake Douglas, Caleb Hildebrand, Alec Abercrombie, and AJ Spence contributed valuable minutes, especially when the starters were in foul trouble.  “The reserves really worked hard,” Mark Palmisano said.  “They allowed their training to take their play to new heights.  Without their improved contribution, we could never have made it as far as we did.”

    The Minutemen exceeded expectations this season--what made the difference?  “Firstly, and most importantly, God has given us all the strength to train year round, which is something that is seldom seen in today’s high school athletics.  Additionally, each boy trained hard and attempted to fulfill his role in each game,” elaborated Coach Palmisano.

    The Minutemen learned valuable lessons about teamwork, perseverance, hope, and hard work this season.  May God continue to work in their lives to produce strength He can use for His kingdom.

 A Palmisano Lifestyle

by Pat Rooney

Reprinted from the 12-17-09 issue of the  Tri-Lakes Tribune

 Paul Palmisano, left, the head coach at Life Academy, with his son Mark, a freshman, the team's leading rebounder and scorer.  Photo by Ken Mellott

Mark Palmisano’s basketball fortunes at Life Academy could not be any further, geographically or even aesthetically, from the environment in which he learned the game.

The son of an admittedly “old school” coach from the Queens borough of New York City, when the Palmisano clan left the big city years ago for a rural life in Southern Colorado, everything about Mark Palmisano’s life became an adjustment.

Gone were the skyscrapers, loud congestion, and pick-up games on every corner that he was accustomed to. Now at the fledgling program at Life Academy under the direction of his father, coach Paul Palmisano, Mark Palmisano is thriving in a life marked by wide-open spaces, quiet nights, and teammates whose collective basketball acumen is not quite up to the pedigree of the kid from the big city.

Life Academy, a Christian-based institution located in Monument, remains a non-CHSAA sanctioned program in basketball, but that has not deterred the team’s learning curve with the Palmisanos running the show. Despite drawing mostly-inexperienced athletes from a high school student body totaling only 16 people, Life Academy posted its second win of the season on Dec. 15 against Silver State Christian and is displaying steady signs of growth behind the sharpshooting younger Palmisano, who is averaging double figures in both scoring and rebounding through the team’s first four games.

“It comes down to no matter how good you are or how bad you are, you can always try your best,” Mark Palmisano said. “You can always play hard. You can always hustle. You can always dive for the ball. You can always get rebounds and play good defense. It’s about encouraging people who might not be at the level of a scorer to do the little things, and eventually you work your way up. You just have to stick with it and keep playing hard.

“This is a great opportunity because you can be part of a team that is up-and-coming... something that is getting a lot better.”

Simply putting enough of a team together in order to hold a viable practice is challenging enough for Life Academy. Three days a week the nine-player team trains at the Tri-Lakes YMCA, often enlisting the help of the building’s personal training staff in order to hold scrimmages. Despite these challenges, Mark Palmisano, a freshman, has staked his claim as one of the top small-school players in the region, if not the state.

In the win against Silver State Christian, Mark Palmisano produced a typically balanced statistical line with 14 points, 14 rebounds, four assists, three steals, and two blocked shots. Through four games, Mark Palmisano has averaged 23.5 points and 12.5 rebounds, setting the stage for a career he hopes to continue in college down the road.

More importantly, Palmisano has lifted the club to a pair of victories and has helped Life Academy improve to the point in which it can now compete with Class 1A and 2A schools.

“He understands that this is a team game and he still has a long way to go,” Paul Palmisano said. “He’s a solid ball player. That might be an understatement because I’m always making sure there is no favoritism involved. We’re from New York City, so it’s the ‘W’s’ that matter. But he’s far exceeding what I thought.”