Dream Big: UCSB Coach Joe Pasternack Brings Lessons to Crane School

On Tuesday, September 16, UCSB men’s basketball coach Joe Pasternack and two of his players, Luke Zuffelato of Santa Barbara and Koat Keat Tong of South Sudan, visited Crane Country Day School for an all-school assembly to share life lessons and encourage students to dream big.

The main theme of their talk was “attitude” and its importance both on and off the basketball court. “The way we define attitude is how you respond when you don’t get what you want, or something bad happens,” said Pasternack.

He stressed that the right attitude, responding positively, persevering and persisting, is essential for overcoming obstacles and achieving success. “It’s not about the result,” he said. “It’s all about how are you going to respond and get back off the floor and persevere and persist to the next test.”

To show that message in action, Pasternack brought Zuffelato and Tong as living examples of the balance between athletics and academics. Zuffelato shared how his own dream of playing college basketball required him to stay disciplined in the classroom. “And so we wanted to show them college players that had these dreams just like them,” Pasternack said.

That connection between lessons and lived experience will continue beyond the assembly. Later this season, the entire Crane School, from kindergarten through eighth grade, is scheduled to attend a UCSB home game, a chance for students to see their role models on the court and to feel part of the college sports environment.

Pasternack said making games family-friendly is part of that effort. Start times have been moved from 7 pm to 6 pm, and food will be available at the arena. The earlier tipoff, he explained, is meant to help families with young children attend. “Seven o’clock was considered too late for young kids and families,” he said.

With no professional sports teams in Santa Barbara, Pasternack sees UCSB’s basketball program, as well as Gaucho pride in general, as an opportunity to unite the community around something positive. “It’s a great environment,” he said, “for families to bring their children to campus and watch student-athletes up close.”

He hopes those experiences, whether in a school gym or an arena, leave children inspired to take on challenges of their own. He shared his personal story: He even shared his own story of being a fifth grader and dreaming of becoming a college basketball coach but was told he was “too small, too short, too slow,” and that he didn’t “look like a basketball player. Clearly whoever told him that had never seen Muggsy Bogues, at 5’3”, play basketball. ”

Despite those doubts, he kept pushing. His message to the students was simple, “Don’t let anybody ruin your dreams.” He urged them to “persevere, persist until you ultimately achieve what you go after in life.”

And for the Crane students, that message may resonate most clearly when they see Zuffelato and Tong take the floor this season, proof that discipline, determination, and attitude can turn childhood dreams into lifetime realities. For Pasternack, the hope is that every young fan leaves not just with memories of a game, but with the belief that their own goals, no matter how lofty, are worth chasing.

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