Coach juggling team, fatherhood

Diaper changes? Check.

Feedings? Check.

Sleep?

“At this point, sleep is very optional,” said Grundy, whose wife Megan gave birth to twin boys on Jan. 26.

Running a varsity hoops team is an all-consuming endeavor. Becoming a new dad twice over, right smack in the middle of the season, is excitement overload.

“It’s 100 percent adrenaline,” said Grundy, who is in his sixth year at the Cougars’ helm. “It’s tough — I’m not going to lie. Luckily for Megan and I our families have been great, really providing support. They know how passionate I am about basketball and teaching. I’ll get home and it will be time for feeding, which is great.”

Jack Kristopher and Ryan David were born one minute apart in a scheduled C-section at Princeton’s University Medical Center. For four days Grundy handed over the team to his assistants, James Avalon, Joe Basford, Tommy Molarz and Pat Youraneff.

“I’m lucky enough to have phenomenal assistant coaches,” Grundy said. “I sat the players down in the summertime and told them, “There’s going to be a point in the season where I’m not going to be there. You guys are going to have to step it up and look at the assistant coaches as if they’re me.’ “

The coaching community understands. Many of Grundy’s counterparts are young dads. Somerville’s Joe D’Alessandro became a mid-season father, also of twins, a few years back. North Plainfield’s Dave Hooker has a seven-month-old son, Cort, who already has been to a couple of afternoon games.

Hooker considered resigning after last season but his wife Maureen talked him out of it.

“She said, “You love it too much, you have to stay with it,’ ” Hooker explained. “My wife is very supportive of me doing what I have to do. She understands the late nights.”

Megan Grundy understood when Kris was glued to his laptop in the hospital room three days after the boys were born. He was listening to the student-run broadcast of the Cougars’ game against rival Hillsborough.

When Montgomery lost in the most excruciating way possible, squandering a 15-point fourth-quarter lead, Grundy reflected on something Linden coach Phil Colicchio had told him the week before: “When your sons are born, there’s going to be a time when you come home after a tough loss or a crappy practice, and you go into the nursery and your sons are there and you look at them and say, “You know what, who gives a (hoot)? Your sons aren’t going to care who won or lost. They’re just happy daddy is home.’ “

It made perfect sense.

“Once we lost to Hillsborough, I knew what he meant,” Grundy said.

Of course the competitive juices didn’t disappear. Grundy returned the following week and has the Cougars at 13-10 with the state tournament looming. The twins are doing well, with plush basketballs in their cribs.

“Everybody got them for us,” Grundy said. “We probably had to return five or six.”

The gift-givers were all thinking the same thing: This is a future backcourt.

“It’s a basketball family,” Grundy said. “Now I’ve got to work on the frontcourt.”