Justin Rutty’s basketball life began with the Newburgh Zion Lions.

That life brought him to being a standout member of the Newburgh Free Academy boys’ basketball team, to being one of the most important players in the Quinnipiac University men’s basketball program. After not getting drafted into the NBA, basketball took him overseas to Europe, first to Switzerland, then playing for various teams in France for about eight years.

After he retired from playing, he went into coaching and for the past four years has been the basketball coach for the International School in Geneva.

He came home to the Zion Lions on October 24 with his girls’ team from the International School.

It wasn’t where I played, it was where I began,” Rutty said. “It was where I began, with the Zion Lions. They’re like a family.”

Rutty’s team, the Hawks, squared off with the Zion Lions’ 15U AAU travel team, coached by another Zion Lions alum, Sarah Williams.

Knowing he’d have this team – which he compared to a junior varsity – in the New York area, he reached out to Williams who coaches the 15U AAU team.

He struck gold immediately, as that was the team Williams coaches. So, what was dubbed the “Battle of the Alumni: Coaches Edition” came to the Newburgh Armory Unity Center.
The game was rather lopsided with the Zion Lions winning 64-31.

As the two teams were about to square off, Zion Lions founder and director Harold Rayford was just happy to have “pulled this off,” he said.

But for Rutty, it was about exposing his team to the American game.

“Mainly, that the girls over there have a little bit more skill,” Rutty said. “But here the girls, especially in New York, they’re just tougher. They would die on a court compared to the girls there. You can just feel that energy, and my girls are experiencing that energy, just off the few games that they played.”

Rutty coaches four teams at the International School, one other girls team – a varsity – and two counterpart boys’ teams.

What it took to walk the path he has started with Rayford, his longtime partner and assistant Mike Fields and the Zion Lions program.

“I think this program really instilled that tough mentality because they have that, especially with Coach Mike and Coach Rayford,” Fields said. “They have that tough ‘I don’t care how you feel’ mentality that makes you want to play harder, harder and harder, until you can’t no more.”

Rutty planned to stay in the area after the Hawks return to Switzerland to visit his family, which includes his mother, brothers and cousins in the area. He spends his summers in Newburgh, but stays in Switzerland at Christmas, saying the snow in the mountains is beautiful.

But there is something about coming home to his roots.

“Every time I come back, I get goosebumps because this is home,” Rutty said. “No matter how much traveling around the world I’ve done, this is always my hometown. And so, when I get back home, I always feel the love, always feel that people miss me. Sometimes I even consider coming back to live, but when you’re traveled so much, it’s hard to be so stationary anymore, and you’d like to move around.”