On those darkened late-night highways, fighting to stay awake, a bag of fast food on the adjacent passenger seat and a song through the car stereo his lone companions, Jimmy Martelli thinks about his dad -- because his dad has been there.

Dad knows the same feeling.

Dad knows the same sacrifice.

Dad was once one of those Division I men's assistant basketball coaches, just like Jimmy, working as hard as he could, putting in unfathomable hours, trying to get noticed, trying to advance.

Jimmy Martelli is a 26-year-old assistant coach at Robert Morris.

Dad is Phil Martelli, in his 15th season as head coach at Saint Joseph's in Philadelphia.

"Sometimes, on those recruiting trips, I'll be driving back from Virginia Beach or somewhere in the middle of the night for seven hours, just to try to make it home so I can sleep three hours before work the next day," Jimmy Martelli said. "I'll ask myself, 'What town did I just pass, where am I, am I ever going to make it back?'

"All that stuff is running through my head and that's when I lean on what my dad has taught me, because he paid his dues at Saint Joe's, he did all of this same work and, now, his quality of life is unbelievable. That's when I think about him."

From growing up watching his father's teams, to playing at Dickinson, to coaching at his alma mater and then Randolph-Macon for a year before joining Robert Morris' staff before last season, basketball has been constantly coursing through Jimmy Martelli's existence.

Truth be told, Phil Martelli had an idea his son would make a living from athletics, just in a different arm of the operation.

"I was surprised when Jim said he wanted to get into coaching," Phil Martelli said. "Because of how organized he is, and some of the things he talked about, I figured he'd want to get into athletic administration. Not a lot of guys talk about wanting to be an athletic director, but Jim talked about that and, honestly, that is the path I thought he would pursue."

Jimmy Martelli, whose older brother, Phil Jr., is an assistant at Niagara University, had an aversion to coaching as a youngster. Not in the theories, the techniques or the lessons taught from the man in charge of a team, but from those exhaustive hours. They were hours that, more often than not, pulled his father away from the family home in pursuit of the next 18-year-old prospect he was trying to lure to Hawk Hill.

"When I was little, my dad would work all the camps in the summer, then he would recruit so hard, that he wasn't home a lot and there were just a lot of things that he missed," Jimmy Martelli said. "I understood that it was all sacrificing to make a better life for us, but, it was tough sometimes on me.

"It was almost like a single-parent situation with my mom doing everything for us kids. Because of that, when I was younger, seeing that, coaching was kind of a turn off to me to be honest."

To be immersed in it for Jimmy Martelli has forced a change.

As Robert Morris (17-8, 11-1) sits atop the Northeast Conference standings heading into tonight's game against Sacred Heart, Jimmy Martelli will take a moment just before tip off, as he always does, to take an inventory of what it all means.

"It is an unbelievable rush to see the hard work come pouring out when they start that game. That is why I do this," he said. "To know that recruiting, preparation, game planning, all those things go into a common goal of trying to win basketball games is a great feeling once that game starts. It is something you can't explain unless you've been there."

His dad could explain it -- he has been there, too.