Beating the Buzzer, All Day Long

All SHU students juggle their courses with clubs, hobbies, friends, family and a host of other passions and stressors. But a day in the life of a typical Division I student-athlete like Nico Galette shows just what it takes to stay on top of your game in both worlds.

From the Fall 2022 issue of Sacred Heart University Magazine

By Meredith Guinness

A plastic cartoon pirate with a bare chest and a straw hat hangs from the zipper on Nico Galette’s backpack. Monkey D. Luffy, star of 1,000+ episodes of the anime series One Piece, is revered for many traits, among them strength, durability, agility and endurance. It’s no wonder he’s found a place in Galette’s life. “I definitely try and use Luffy as life motivation in the sense that he doesn’t back down and pursues his goal no matter what and no matter who is in front of him,” Galette says when asked about the tiny talisman. “In my opinion, I think the same way. If I work hard, it’ll just be a matter of time before I am better.”

It’s important to note that Galette equates working hard with getting better, with the journey of improvement, but that success and winning are never assumed. That’s just as likely to be the athlete speaking as it is to be the junior engineer coming through. There are always variabilities beyond his control. Therefore, the training, the practice, the study is all about bettering his own abilities to meet them—to not back down, no matter who or what challenges he faces.

The buzzer on Galette’s alarm clock sounds at 8:30 a.m. on Thursdays. He wastes little time scrambling into clothes and choosing from the rack of sneakers stacked next to a full-sized Haitian flag hanging in his off-campus bedroom.

The flag, like the talisman on his backpack, is more than decoration. But whereas Luffy is a reminder of where Galette is going and what it takes to get there, the flag is a reminder of where he is from and what it has taken to get here.

His dad, Saulus Galette, was 25 when he left the village of Fon Pais En, Haiti, for the United States, settling in Rahway, NJ, with a solid job as a carpenter (“a union carpenter,” the younger Galette is quick to clarify, with obvious pride in his father’s commitment to providing stability for his family). Here he met his wife, Colette Lamothe, who had a career with the New Jersey State Department of Health before moving to the Nicholson Foundation. Together, they made a home for Nico and his sisters, Valerie, now 22, and Jessica, 16, filled with love, faith, a deep belief in education and a fondness for the basketball hoop in the family backyard where, as a boy, Galette first dreamed of a life on the court.

SHU was the first school to make an offer to the senior basketball standout and, at just 17, he took a leap of faith and committed to the Pioneers, sight unseen.

And now, three years later, the engineering student-athlete has his bed made and bag packed for a standard day of studies and practice—and practice and studies. He heads for the kitchen to fry up two eggs to go with his morning protein bar. Is he a good cook?

“I like to think so,” he says with a grin.

Within an hour of opening his eyes, he’s arrived on campus and is warming up in the gym at the Valentine Health & Recreation Center with the first of many coaches Galette encounters in a typical day. This hour of shooting practice with Director of Basketball Operations Donte Gittens isn’t required. Galette just takes advantage of the opportunity to work one on one with Gittens, who played in Europe and coached at prep schools before joining the SHU squad this fall.

“Got a little cold streak … get hot, get two, get three more … stick with it, stick with it, stick with it,” Gittens nudges, letting out a little whoop as Galette swishes a trio of three-pointers in a row. “Yeah! That’s it!”

The celebration is short-lived, however, and for a couple of reasons—both having to do with why Galette is here in the first place. One: as a student-athlete, nailing that three-pointer is part of the job. Two: the other part of the job is being a student. And it’s time for class.

Grabbing a couple of apples, a water, some juice and two peanut butter and jelly Uncrustables® from the bottomless snack supply in the basketball suite, Galette hops the shuttle to West Campus and Digital Analog Systems with Assistant Professor Kevin Bowlyn at 11 a.m. For the next hour, Bowlyn helps the class review for an upcoming exam, multiplying and subtracting binary numbers on a whiteboard under a cartoon clock that reads, “People think it’s magic. We call it Engineering.”

SHU’s engineering program was one of the things that cemented Galette’s enthusiasm for his future alma mater. Inspired by the professional engineers in his extended family, along with his own talent for math and science, Nico Galette had talked of engineering since middle school. But it was touring the campus with his immediate family—and most notably the ringing endorsement of his mother, herself a double-Ivy degree bearer with a bachelor’s from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s from Yale—that let him know he’d found his home.

Indeed, Colette Lamothe-Galette’s endorsement of anything carried special weight. Beloved by her family, her coworkers and her parish, Colette and her two elder children served as Eucharistic ministers, and Nico and his mom often assisted the Rev. Hank Hilton when the family moved to Hilton’s parish, St. Joseph Church, after Valerie went off to college. Everyone there knows the Galettes. The congregation erupted in a standing ovation when Fr. Hank announced Nico had signed with SHU in fall 2019.

Then, in the spring of 2020, as Nico prepared for graduation and the world reeled in the early stages of the pandemic, Colette, who had asthma, was diagnosed with an ear infection. Hospitalized, she developed both pneumonia and COVID-19.

Colette Lamothe-Galette passed away on April 4, 2020. She was 45.

When an athlete is signed, says Head Coach Anthony Latina, he becomes family. Latina and his whole coaching staff would have traveled to the funeral, but—as was the case with so many grieving families in those early months of the pandemic—the Galettes were unable to hold one in person. Latina and his staff did attend virtually and, not long afterwards, Fr. Hank tracked Latina down to make sure he knew how special Galette was to his community and to make sure he was handing the teen off to a watchful college family.

“In 28 years of coaching, I can say there are not many times a priest has called me to talk about a kid,” Latina says. “He said, ‘This is a special kid. I wanted you to know about him.’” But then that’s the impact Colette had on those around her—that family and friends are one, and an entire parish steps up in honor of the parent who is gone. “She was a tremendous lady,” Latina says. “I believe she was a big part of him coming to SHU. She liked the engineering program. Education meant a lot to her.”

So it is that Galette, an A student in engineering considering a minor in math, hunches over a legal pad full of test notes while he rolls his sore right heel over a stress ball. It’s as if he’s channeling both his parents at once. This son of a union laborer and an esteemed public health leader, always putting in the work now for what lies ahead, always training the mind and the body at the same time. Always multitasking.

By 1 p.m., he and the team have convened at the Pitt Center, warming up with Strength Coach Todd Riedel. Nu Breed’s “Welcome to My House” thumps through the weight room where the hoopsters share a long row of 12 weight stations with the women’s softball squad. Riedel coaches eight players at a time through an explosive movement, deadlifting 90 pounds up to standing, then dropping the barbell to the ground once their backs are straight. Players tease each other and joke around, some singing along with the music or letting out very real yelps of pain at the end of a core-crunching series of Sorinex leg curls.

“Nico, squeeze your glutes! Stand tall— good!” Riedel yells out over the cacophony.

Next up is Galette’s favorite part of the day. The team gathers in the chilly Pitt Center gym for the day’s 2.5-hour practice, which includes reviewing practice tapes and endless drills to perfect their moves for the season ahead.

A half hour in, Galette completes a sweet blind pass to forward Bryce Johnson, who easily takes it to the hoop. The pair smile at each other and exchange a high five.

Galette is close to many of his teammates, sharing a home on nearby Ruth Street with three—guards Joey Reilly, Brendan McGuire and Mike Sixsmith. “Nico’s great. He’s very clean,” says McGuire, joking about Galette’s housekeeping prowess. “He’s a lot of fun and, on the court, he’s very talented and he’s got a lot of energy. He’s definitely one of the leaders.”

An all-around player, Galette credits his organizational skills (this week he has finished all his homework for the week by Wednesday night) for staying on top of his game and his course load of four classes and an evening lab.

Also, “It’s good to build a good relationship with your professors,” he says.

Latina agrees, saying Galette possesses an outstanding work ethic and social skills well beyond his years. “He’s easy to root for.”

And there will be no shortage of fans doing just that—none louder than his dad and sisters who will be at most home and nearby away games, as will a cadre of his proud aunties.

While some get butterflies thinking about games—between two and four a week during the regular season—Galette says he’s excited for real competition. Having started in all but one game last season, he’s confident and ready for what he, his team and the coaches expect will be a great year.

Before that, however, there’s the rest of the day to win. Aside from his breakfast eggs, Galette has precious little time for home-cooked meals. After a 7:30 p.m. lab and maybe a quick pickup game with teammates, he’ll likely stop off for a 9 p.m. dinner at Linda’s, where he’s known for his usual—a grilled chicken sandwich with lettuce, tomato, cheddar cheese and barbecue sauce— with a Gatorade and maybe a cookie. It’s become such standard fare for Galette that “they should call it The Nico,” Coach Gittens jokes.

Sometime around 10 p.m., he’ll head back home to catch an action film, listen to Bob Marley on original vinyl or study before lights out to rest up for another day. Like any SHU student-athlete, the schedule Galette keeps is unrelenting. Sure, it’s a mix of work and play, but even the play is purposeful—from morning technique practice to afternoon strength training, practice, drills and tapes, and even into the evening with a “casual” game of pickup that lets all the day’s work sift and find its way into his muscle memory. And yet Galette, like so many of his student-athlete colleagues, makes it look easy.

For him, it’s all about the preparation. Being prepared for what comes next so that he can focus on what’s happening now helps the day’s many transitions move smoothly. “It’s like having a switch,” he says.

So what does come next? Unsurprisingly, Galette has his eye on the pros—in his case, a coveted spot in the NBA. But he won’t turn his nose up at playing professionally in Europe or elsewhere if he gets that chance. If that doesn’t happen, his perseverance off the court will assure him a solid career in engineering.

“My goal is to be as versatile as I can be,” he says. “I’m trying to go as far as I can.”