- November 23, 2024
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FPC coach Javier Bevacqua delivers instructions to his team during a Jan. 7, 2020 game.
Javier Bevacqua and players fall to the ground hugging after FPC defeated Orlando Boone on Feb. 14, 2015 for a spot in the Final Four.
Javier Bevacqua was named FABC Class 8A Coach of the Year in 2015.
After 12 seasons, 239 victories and nine playoff appearances, Javier Bevacqua is stepping down as Flagler Palm Coast’s girls’ basketball coach.
Bevacqua said he accepted a new position with the school as an Individualized Education Plan writer in the Exceptional Student Education department and no longer has enough time to devote to the basketball program.
“It was like making a choice between doing something well or doing two things not to their full potential,” he said.
Bevacqua, who will continue to coach FPC’s girls' tennis team, said he also wants to spend more time with his family. He has two children, ages 16 and 11.
“I was coaching before they were born,” said Bevacqua, who coached girls’ basketball for nearly 13 years in New York before moving to Florida. “As a family we don’t know what a Thanksgiving break is, what a Christmas break is, what a summer break is because you have camps throughout the summer.
“Everyone sees basketball season, but they don’t realize the other eight months that go into preparation.”
He always coached with his girls’ best interest in heart.”
STEVE DEAUGUSTINO, FPC athletic director
Bevacqua’s teams won 239 games with 119 losses. His Bulldogs won four district titles, four regional championships and advanced to the Final Four in 2015. That season he was named Class 8A Coach of the Year by the Florida Association of Basketball Coaches.
FPC athletic director Steve DeAugustino said Bevacqua has agreed to continue to run the team’s fall program until the school hires a new coach. Two candidates were interviewed as of Aug. 19 with more scheduled, the AD said.
“He ran the program the way it should be run,” DeAugustino said. “He worked with the middle school kids and the elementary school kids. He knows the importance of a good feeder system. He was always there for his girls and he still will be. He always coached with his girls’ best interest in heart.”
In Bevacqua's first season the Bulldogs won a school-record 15 games. He went on to win 20 games four times, compiling a 26-5 record during the Bulldogs’ Final Four season in 2014-15 and a 24-2 mark the following year.
During the Final Four season, the Bulldogs reached a No. 25 national ranking by USA Today.
“That was big-time for a little school in Palm Coast,” he said.
Many of his former players went on to play college basketball including Tamara Henshaw (University of South Florida), who helped lead the Bulldogs to the Final Four as a junior; Armani Walker (Bethune-Cookman University); Ivana Boyd (Lamar/Flagler College); Skye Green (UNC Asheville/Texas Southern) and Brianna Ellis (University of New Orleans).
Before moving to Florida, Bevacqua coached at Grand Street Campus High School in Brooklyn, New York, where he won a city title.
He said he stumbled onto coaching girls’ basketball by accident. While coaching a boys AAU team, a girls’ coach asked him to show the players how to run a particular defense.
“Everyone paid attention,” he said. “I became a girls’ coach after that, and I’ve had fun ever since. I’ve just been blessed.”
