Mike Spisto moved to administration as NJIT’s Eligibility Certification Office/ Academic Adviser for Athletics in the Spring of 2013, working in The Learning Center, now named the Norma J. Clayton '81 Learning Center.
For the previous five years, he was the top assistant coach on the men’s basketball staff, working with head coach Jim Engles in an association that culminated with the Highlanders capturing the 2013 regular season championship of the Great West Conference.
In addition to 14 years college coaching—five at NJIT—he served as Director of Athletics at the State University of New York at Delhi in the two years before he joined Engles’ coaching staff with the Highlanders.
He had two stints as head coach at SUNY at Delhi sandwiched around three years as a Division I assistant with Rider and Albany (NY). He began his coaching career with two years an assistant at his alma mater, Division III SUNY Oneonta.
At Delhi, which is also an alma mater, he was head coach from 1999 to 2001, left to become a Division I assistant and then returned for another two-year stint as head coach from 2004 to 2006 before becoming AD at Delhi.
His head coaching record in four years at SUNY Delhi was 86-31 and both stints included championships and coaching awards. His first Division I coaching assignment came at Rider University in 2001-02, where he worked alongside Jim Engles as an assistant when Rider captured its first-ever Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season championship.
Heading to the University at Albany (NY), he helped recruit the team that would win back-to-back America East Conference championships.
Spisto’s coaching career began at Oneonta State following his 1997 graduation. In addition to his bachelor’s degree from Oneonta, he earned an associate’s degree from SUNY Delhi, as well as an MSS from United States Sports Academy.
He played at both Delhi and Oneonta and was all-region twice at Delhi, where he is the career assists leader. At Oneonta he was captain as a senior after winning an ECAC title his junior year.
Mike and his wife, Katie-Lynn, reside in Staten Island, NY, with their young children: sons Michael (9) and Christopher (6), and daughter Alyssa (2).
