Sitting at his desk in the guidance office at Calvert Hall, Mark Amatucci appears different.
He no longer looks -- or acts -- like the beleaguered basketball coach who had to resign at Loyola College six years ago.
"That's all people seem to remember about Loyola," said Amatucci. "They remember how things were at the end. They forget about the five great years we had there when Tommy O'Connor was the athletic director."
He's right, too.
Amatucci was the boy wonder coach who won a national high school championship at Calvert Hall in 1982. Right after that, he was hired by O'Connor to coach the Division I college team at Loyola.
After a 4-24 first year, Amatucci's Greyhounds had the biggest turnaround in the country. There were three straight 16-win seasons, then a season with 15 wins. Then things began to sour.
"A change of administrations" is what Amatucci attributes it to.
O'Connor left to become A.D. at Santa Clara, later moving on to St. Bonaventure. He's now at George Mason.
Onto the scene as athletic director at Loyola came Dr. Tom Brennan. Brennan had a Ph. D., which obviously impressed Loyola.
When it came to people skills, Brennan couldn't have passed kindergarten. Athletic department members, almost overnight, became unhappy.
Amatucci, coach of what is supposed to be the college's marquee sport, was the unhappiest of all.
For technical violations of NCAA rules, Mark's team was put on probation. For one year he was not allowed to go off campus to recruit. And every day there was Brennan to deal with.
Mark's last Loyola team went 10-18 (the school's present team is 8-16). It surprised no one when Amatucci and the college parted company.
Buddy Beardmore hired Mark at Anne Arundel Community College, where he coached for two years. Then he spent a year as Tom Finnegan's assistant at Washington College.
Finally, two years ago, he came back home -- back to his alma mater, Calvert Hall. Back to the Christian Brothers' school at which he had once produced a 34-0 team ranked No. 1 in the country.
Last year his Calvert Hall team went 17-11. This year it is 24-8, ranked fifth in The Sun poll and seeded second to St. Frances in this weekend's Baltimore Catholic League tournament.
One morning this week, between appointments with the ninth- and 10th-graders he counsels, he talked about his odyssey. As he did he had the look of a man who has found himself.
"I was -- what, 30 years old? -- when I came to Loyola College," asked Amatucci, who will be 43 in May.
"I've learned a lot through dealing with adversity. I've learned that I should have shaken a few more hands and been a better communicator.
"I'm proud of what we did at Loyola. Not only proud of the wins, but the required study halls we put in, the academic records of my players. Five of the top seven scorers in Loyola's history were my kids."
A measure of Amatucci's maturing is that he no longers blames everyone but himself.
"The NCAA probation was my fault," he said. "It wasn't premeditated. But I should have had a better knowledge of the very technical NCAA rules we were in violation of.
"That hurt us. When we couldn't go off campus to recruit it stopped our momentum."
Amatucci wouldn't even discuss that period unless asked to. He's totally absorbed in what he's doing now.
"Calvert Hall was here for me when I needed it," he said. "I love the coaching. I love working as an adviser with these kids. That's my background. At Juniata College I majored in psychology and sociology."
There are those who claim Calvert Hall's sudden improvement in basketball is the result of Amatucci's recruiting in the city.
"We do recruit basketball players," Mark said, "but there are no athletic scholarships.
"There are tons of kids who want to come here. This is a great school.
"But we're only interested in the ones who are ready to make a commitment to attend a two-hour study hall every day before practice at 4:45 and are ready to work hard in basketball.
"We eliminate kids who don't have the commitment. When we find one who has it and he needs assistance to pay the tuition [$5,100], we can help him.
"We don't talk much about wins on our team. We talk about being focused, about chemistry, about the mental part of the game. If you take care of those things, the wins will come."
Amatucci gets along fine with his athletic director, Lou Eckerl. The two went to Juniata together.
"I hired Mark," said Eckerl, "because he's an excellent coach. His enthusiasm and dedication rub off on the kids. His up-tempo style is exciting to watch. And I like the way he makes kids toe the line."
Calvert Hall will play its first-round game at home tomorrow night at 8 o'clock. After that the tournament moves to UMBC. Finals are set for 4 p.m. Sunday.