Love of game made 2 Ocean City kids lifelong friends; on Saturday, they will try to outcoach each other

November 25, 2022 Erin Reynolds

Thanksgiving is here and so is this week’s Pro Football Challenge special with three Turkey Day games, including our game of the week: New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys.

Scott Bittner and Chris Carideo can laugh about it now.

After all, the late 1980s and the early 1990s were a different time.

Back then, the two did a fair amount of hitchhiking around South Jersey.

“Our parents would kill us if they knew what we were doing,” Carideo said with a laugh. “But, hey, we’re 50 now.”

One thing the two always brought when they were looking for a ride was a basketball.

“People will always pick up somebody with a ball,” Carideo said.

You meet the best people in gyms, at baseball diamonds, on football fields or any other plac…

Basketball has been at the center of the Bittner’s and Carideo’s lives since they were at Ocean City Middle School. Bittner is now head coach of the Stockton University men’s team. Cardideo coaches the Widener University men. Their teams will play at 2 p.m. Saturday at Stockton, the first time with both Bittner and Carideo as head coaches.

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“We’ve been thick as thieves for a long, long time,” Bittner said. “In the ups and downs of life, he’s been the constant, along with a few of my other friends. He’s been the guy in my corner and vice versa.”

Bittner and Carideo played together at Ocean City High School and St. Augustine Prep. Bittner, 51, graduated from St. Augustine in 1990, Carideo, 50, in 1991.

Bittner went on to play at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia and scored 1,681 career points. Bittner joined the Stockton coaching staff in 2006. The Ospreys named him the interim head coach in summer 2016 and the full-time coach before the 2017-18 season. He has a 95-55 career record.

Carideo starred at Widener as a player from 1991-95. He scored 2,067 career points, and in many ways he was ahead of time as a player. Carideo finished his career with 402 3-pointers and still holds the NCAA Division III record with a 3-pointer made in 75 straight games. Carideo, who is in his 17th season as Widener’s coach, began his head-coaching career at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York, and has more than 300 wins.

“Both kids were like a coach on the floor,” St. Augustine coach Paul Rodio said. “I know that sounds cliché and perfect to say today, but it’s the truth. They had a work ethic. They had a grasp of what they wanted to do. They knew what they wanted to do. They wanted to play in college. They wanted to do this. I’m not shocked that either one of them are coaches.”

Roots in O.C.

It all started for Bittner and Carideo in Ocean City.

They were obsessed with basketball and making each other better. They would often play full court one-on-one games on the playgrounds there. Carideo remembers Bittner throwing rocks at his bedroom window to wake Carideo up for early-morning workouts.

“Growing up in Ocean City, in the wintertime, there weren’t a whole lot of people who were around that would help you get better at what you want to do,” Carideo said. “I don’t know what we would have done without each other. We reached our ceiling when it came to being basketball players because of each other.”

Nowadays, the first thing Carideo and Bittner often do after they finish coaching their own teams is check each other’s score. Although both have supportive assistants, sometimes it takes a head coach to understand what another head coach is going through.

“There is a certain loneliness to it,” Bittner said of being a head coach. “At least, somebody else knows what you’re going through.”

Both Stockton and Widener are off to 3-1 starts this season. Stockton is projected to be one of the nation’s top Division III teams after reaching the NCAA Sweet 16 last season.

Bittner and Carideo have no issue with coaching or competing against each other. They never have. Their competitiveness even stretched back to their hitchhiking days. Occasionally, they would stay late at St. Augustine to play basketball and then hitchhike back to Ocean City. One would go through Mays Landing and the other through the Tuckahoe section of Upper Township to see who got home first.

“This is a great game for our teams,” Carideo said of Saturday’s game. “Iron sharpens iron. Scott and I have always been that way. We always try to push each other to make each other better. That’s always been our relationship.”

PHOTO Stockton men’s basketball team preparing for 2022-23 season

The Stockton’s University men’s Basketball team practices Wednesday,November 9, 2022, in preparation for the upcoming season.(Kristian Gonyea, For The Press of Atlantic City)

Stockton’s Kyion Flanders looks to make a pass during Wednesday’s practice.

Kristian Gonyea, For The Press

The Stockton’s University men’s Basketball team practices Wednesday,November 9, 2022, in preparation for the upcoming season.(Kristian Gonyea, For The Press of Atlantic City)

The Stockton men’s basketball team went 26-5, won the New Jersey Athletic Conference Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Division III Sweet 16. The Ospreys open this season at 6 p.m. Saturday against Baruch at Penn State-Harrisburg.

Kristian Gonyea PHOTOS, For The Press

The Stockton’s University men’s Basketball team practices Wednesday,November 9, 2022, in preparation for the upcoming season.(Kristian Gonyea, For The Press of Atlantic City)

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Love of game made 2 Ocean City kids lifelong friends; on Saturday, they will try to outcoach each other

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Roots in O.C.

PHOTO Stockton men’s basketball team preparing for 2022-23 season

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