Getty Joe Mazzulla
Joe Mazzulla’s wife is Camai Roberson Mazzulla, and the couple has been married since 2014. The Boston Celtics head coach and his wife first met in West Virginia when they were both coaching at Glenville State University; Mazzulla joined the college as an assistant basketball coach while Camai Mazzulla coached the women’s volleyball team. The couple now lives together in Boston with their two kids.
Here’s what you need to know about Joe Mazzulla’s wife Camai Roberson Mazzulla:
1. Camai Roberson Met Joe Mazzulla When They Were Both Coaches at Glenville State & She Said They Started Off as Friends
Camai Mazzulla, née Roberson, met her future husband when they were both at Glenville State College on the coaching staff. The college, in small-town Glenville, West Virginia, was her alma mater and after graduating from the school, she began coaching the women’s volleyball team.
Mazzulla arrived at Glenville State as an unpaid assistant for the school’s Division 2 basketball team. He lived in a trailer park and spent his free time studying game film, the Boston Globe reported. He met Camai Mazzulla soon after he arrived at the school when he attended an athletic department breakfast that she was organizing, and he told the Globe that no one else came to the breakfast.
As for Camai Mazzulla, she laughed when she recalled their first meeting and said, “I did not like him when I first met him,” she shared on the “More Than a Season” podcast in 2021. “But it worked out great because we started off as just friends and he ended up actually after that taking a job at a rival school.”
She joked about her husband’s minimalist lifestyle and recalled when they were together and he became the head coach of Fairmont State University, he told her he wanted to buy an RV and park it outside the school gym so they could live there. “When I say he was dead serious, he was dead serious,” his wife told the Globe. “He’s like, ‘We’d have free electricity. We can take showers in the locker room and do laundry in the team laundry room.’ I’m like, ‘Have you lost your mind?'”
2. Camai Mazzulla Said She’s Always Loved Sports But Retired From Coaching to Invest In Her Partner’s Career
It was good to see WVian Camai Mazzulla, who is in DC today for Criminal Justice Reform Capitol Hill Day. #AllRise15 http://t.co/3kTkt4CzCM
Camai Mazzulla is no stranger to athletics as she is a former dual collegiate athlete, playing volleyball and running track while in college. After graduating from Glenville State College, she began coaching the school’s volleyball team. She coached there from the 2010 to 2013 season, the school’s website shows, and she shared that she stopped coaching afterward because she “made a commitment at that point to invest in [Mazzulla]’s career,” she told the “More Than a Season” podcast.
She said the two of them made the decision together that they would focus on his coaching career, as she shared, “My passion wasn’t as strong in coaching as his was. I love sports, obviously, I’ve done it my whole life. But his passion is just out of this world. And mine wasn’t.” They also knew that there would be more opportunities for Mazzulla as a men’s basketball coach compared to a women’s volleyball coach and both of them were happy with the decision.
After making the decision to leave coaching, she got a new job within two days working as a clerk for a judge. She said for the first six years of Mazzulla’s coaching career, she was the breadwinner of the family. According to her LinkedIn profile, Camai Mazzulla worked as a deputy clerk for the Marion County Clerk’s Office from 2013 to 2014. She then worked for five years, from 2014 to 2019, as a probation officer with the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
By that point, the family was living in Fairmont, West Virginia, where Mazzulla worked as an assistant coach from 2013 to 2016. Camai Mazzzulla shared with the podcast hosts that Fairmont is still home to the family as they spent so much time there and developed a great support system there, and that’s why she didn’t follow her husband to Maine for the year he worked with Boston’s G-League affiliate, the Maine Red Claws.
She also said she was at a great place in her career and was coaching her oldest son’s basketball team, while also studying to get her master’s and taking care of her then-4-month-old baby. She obtained her master’s of science in criminal justice and corrections at Fairmont State University, her LinkedIn shows. After a season in Maine, Mazzulla returned to Fairmont as the head coach.
3. Joe Mazzulla Has Praised His Wife & Thanked Her for Her Love & Support
It’s clear that Mazzulla loves Fairmont and West Virginia as much as his wife does as he wrote a touching letter to the state when he left for the Boston Celtics in 2019, which was published by the Fairmont State Athletics website.
He wrote that he arrived in West Virginia 13 years prior and fell in love with the personality of the state. “This state is blue collar, combining a mindset of toughness, work ethic, and genuine care for others,” he wrote. “It has made me feel like I have been raised here and this is home. In a lot of ways, West Virginia will always be home to me.”
Mazzulla shared that some of his best years were spent in West Virginia, “college years and the years of growing emotionally and spiritually after college.” His coaching career began in the Mountain State and it’s also where he met his wife and started his family. “I was also very fortunate to meet my beautiful wife, get married, begin growing our family here and purchase our first home,” he wrote.
A Glenville State newsletter announced that the couple tied the knot on August 9, 2014, in Morgantown, West Virginia.
“My wife Camai, my stepson Michael and my youngest son Emmanuel are the most important people in my life,” Mazzulla wrote in his letter. “Thank you Camai for your love, support and sacrifice. You are the true face of our family by how you keep us all together and give everything you have every day.” Mazzulla also thanked the town of Fairmont for being there for his wife and children to help support them when he left for Maine in 2016.
4. Camai Mazzulla Was Very Supportive of Her Husband’s Team at Fairmont State & Said It Was Hard to Leave Them to Go to Boston
Camai Mazzulla opened up about the moment her husband decided to accept the Boston Celtics’ assistant coaching job in 2019. Their entire family discussed it and prayed on it since their home and lives were all in Fairmont, she told the “More Than a Season” hosts.
She described it as a “hard decision” but they eventually decided that he had to go since it was the career he’d always dreamed of. “His biggest weakness, as well as his strength, is his loyalty,” Mazzulla’s wife shared with the Globe. “He’ll plant himself somewhere and not want to leave. He was going to try to sign, like, a 10-year deal at Fairmont.”
She spoke about adjusting to life in Boston and said it had been really hard and she missed the community environment of Fairmont and her husband’s team there. At the time of her podcast interview in 2021, Mazzulla said, “I miss the team, I miss the guys.”
Camai Mazzulla was an integral part of the Fighting Falcons basketball team and said she and her husband used to host a dinner every weekend. During finals week, she made each player an individual package. “And when they get sick, I’m communicating with their moms to see what they need,” she added.
After Mazzulla was named interim head coach of the Celtics for the 2022-23 season in September 2022, his wife wrote on Instagram, “Well another season has begun…. And this one looks a little different than originally planned. However, God gives us specific and unique gifts, skills and passions to prepare us for His plans. If you know us – you know our journey has always been bigger than basketball, but man isn’t basketball a great bonus.”
5. Camai Mazzulla Is a Mother of 2 & Described Her Boys as ‘Wild & Crazy’
Camai Mazzulla is the mother of two boys, Michael Harden and Emmanuel, who she described on “More Than a Season” podcast as “two very wild and crazy boys.”
Her oldest, Michael Harden, is Mazzulla’s stepson although he’s always referred to both his sons as his children. Camai Mazzulla said when they decided to move to Boston, their son Emmanuel was just three years old. However, Michael Harden was in fourth grade and she said they asked his opinion. “We really did value his opinion… but he was all for it,” she shared on the podcast.
She said now that they live in Boston, her role has changed to that of a stay-at-home mom for the first time in her life. She said it was a “blessing” to not have to work but she was adjusting to that reality and feeling like she should be doing more. At the time, she revealed that she was focusing on slowing down and enjoying every moment with her children.