Chris DiJulia was known for his wit, loyalty, and perseverance — not his wheelchair. Philly will always remember him that way

Chris DiJulia spent 56 years living as if he didn’t have cerebral palsy. He’d take “walks” in his wheelchair, down the block from his Havertown home. He was a regular passenger on SEPTA long before paratransit came to the suburbs in 1994.

The avid St. Joseph’s basketball fan would often go to Hawk Hill to visit his father, Don, the longtime athletic director, or to watch men’s and women’s basketball practice.

But he’d also venture to Eagles training camp in West Chester, games at the Palestra, Villanova, Temple, all on his own, boldly traversing a city unequipped to take him anywhere.

Of course, this came with its challenges. A broken elevator or an unexpected flight of stairs could derail an entire trip. Sometimes, a bus driver would pretend not to see DiJulia waiting at his stop because they didn’t want the hassle.

But DiJulia was no fool, and certainly no pushover. He’d scribble down the license plate, call SEPTA’s customer service line, and report the vehicle.

“And probably said a thing or two about them as they drove by,” his father added.

This spirit was what made DiJulia special. His limbs were short and stiff, his speech was slow and slurred, but between the ears, he was just like anybody else, and expected to be treated as such.

He frequently signaled this through his humor. If the St. Joe’s fan was among a group of coaches trading barbs, he’d join in. DiJulia was not above yelling “brick” when a player missed a shot, or expanding that sentiment to, “you’re building a whole house!”

No one was exempt, not even NBA stars. Charles Barkley first met DiJulia in the late 1980s, at the start of his professional career. The Sixers practiced in the morning at St. Joe’s, and the teenager in the wheelchair was always there.

If Barkley had a poor showing, DiJulia would be quick to point it out.

“When I had hair, you never played bad and [went] to a black barber shop,” Barkley said last week. “You never played bad and [went to] see Chris DiJulia the next morning. You know something bad is going to happen.”

DiJulia could’ve lived a smaller, less-adventurous life in Havertown, and no would have blamed him. But he chose to immerse himself in the world of Philadelphia sports, with all its eccentricities and quirks, and fit right in.

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Now, that world is mourning his absence. On July 27, DiJulia died of natural causes stemming from cerebral palsy. The outpouring of support has been immense and wide-ranging.

The DiJulia family has heard from former St. Joe’s basketball players, softball players, field hockey players. Broadcasters and coaches have reached out, many of whom are no longer in the Philadelphia market.

On Thursday morning, Phil Martelli, another close friend of DiJulia’s, texted Delonte West. The former Hawks guard has long struggled with substance abuse and homelessness, but has been sober for the past 190 days.

He asked Martelli to relay a message.

“Please send my condolences for Chris,” West said. “[He] was my brother, I carry him in spirit, he used to always have the right words and smile for me.”

A public funeral will be held on Aug. 12. The family is expecting a big crowd. Some will travel hundreds of miles, all to support a man who would do anything to support them.

DiJulia was born in Connecticut in 1969. At first, his parents thought he was healthy; it wasn’t until the baby was baptized that a family member with a medical background noticed his head was oversized.

Doctors diagnosed him with cerebral palsy, and he underwent surgery at three weeks old (the first of over 20 surgeries throughout his lifetime).

Even as an infant, Chris radiated joy, with a big smile and bright blue eyes. Pat DiJulia knew her son had obstacles ahead, but when she’d look at his face, full of expression, she could tell he understood what she was saying.

Don was an assistant college basketball coach at Fairfield at the time. A few years later, when he was hired by George Washington, the family moved to Virginia.

In 1973, he accepted an assistant coaching job at American. Chris was approaching pre-school age, but local options were limited.

The boy would need physical, occupational and speech therapy. The Americans with Disabilities Act was 17 years from becoming law, and most schools didn’t provide those kinds of services yet.

So, the DiJulias were directed to three boarding schools on the East Coast. The one closest to them, in Virginia, was more like an institution; instead of catering to a specific population, it housed students with a number of physical and mental disabilities.

They chose to send Chris to Philadelphia instead, to the HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy. Both parents had family in the area who could visit him. Don started looking for work there, which is how he ended up becoming the St. Joe’s athletic director in 1976.

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It was at HMS that Chris found his love for Philadelphia sports. Many staff members were Phillies fans and began to watch games with him. He quickly developed a talent for critiquing the local ball club (one that would serve him for the rest of his life).

The younger DiJulia would spend his weekends at Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse and the St. Joe’s athletic offices. He did not do so quietly. Women’s basketball coach Jim Foster said the 9-year-old would routinely bust into his office, so much so that he joked he was going to “need a new doorway.”

The family returned to Connecticut in 1984, when Don was named commissioner of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. But they couldn’t stay away from Hawk Hill, and came back in 1988, after Don was re-hired as athletic director, a job he’d keep for the next 30 years before retiring.

By this point, Chris was a young man, brimming with confidence. This was due in large part to his upbringing. He was one of seven children, and Pat and Don treated him no different than the others.

The family would help Chris where he needed it, but always encouraged him to be independent. If he could lift his arms and put his shirt on with some minor assistance, then he would do it.

If he could shuffle his feet from the wheelchair to the bed, as someone hoisted him up, then he would do that, too.

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“He was one of the seven,” his sister, Kath Cloran, said. “And yes, he needed extra care, but he was held to the same standards as all of us.

“He never wanted to be special. He just wanted to fit in and do what all of us did, really, and just live as regular a life as he possibly could.”

Transportation was integral to this. Don and Pat would map out a route for their son before each trip, making sure he was familiar with every curb and stair.

Some of these trips were laborious. To get to his technical school in Norristown, for example, Chris would travel a half mile on Haverford Road, to a platform for a high-speed rail.

When he arrived at Norristown Transit Center, he’d take an elevator to the street level (if the elevator was working, which was a big if) and “walk” a few more blocks to school.

Despite any setbacks, the process was empowering. And paratransit made it even easier. Before long, Chris could travel all over the city, which meant ample trips to St. Joe’s and elsewhere.

Jim Lynam, the Sixers’ former head coach and DiJulia’s uncle, said it wouldn’t be unusual for his nephew to attend Sixers practice in the morning, St. Joe’s men’s basketball practice in the afternoon, and women’s basketball practice at night.

This was how he met Barkley.

The NBA star quickly realized DiJulia was able — and willing — to spar. So, Barkley and a few of his teammates, Rick Mahorn and Manute Bol, started going back and forth with him.

“Some fans, they’re just a—holes,” Barkley said. “They’re just mean. But the way he said something and just started laughing immediately, it took all the sting away.”

He added: “I literally met this guy 1,000 times, because he was always at practice. And I think it gave him joy. It gave us joy, but I think it really gave him joy, too.”

DiJulia became omnipresent in Philadelphia basketball circles. When he wasn’t at St. Joe’s, he’d be at home, on the phone, usually with a coach.

In the late 1980s, Foster invited him to sit on the bench during women’s basketball games (a tradition that continued after Cindy Griffin took over the program).

The coach and his de facto assistant created a pre-game routine. After Foster gave his initial speech, he’d turn to DiJulia, who would share a few words.

“And then he would say, ‘But what it really comes down to,’ and he’d point to his heart,” St. Joe’s Hall of Famer Katie Gardler said. “And then he would point to his head.

“And you looked at all your teammates, and you’re like, ‘We’re doing this for him. Because he can’t get out there. We’re doing this for him.’”

DiJulia soon expanded his network beyond Hawk Hill, attending the NCAA and Atlantic 10 tournaments, among other events. If a coach left Philadelphia, he’d follow their careers, often traveling to go see them.

From the 1990s to the 2020s, DiJulia flew to Vanderbilt, Ohio State and Chattanooga to visit Foster, and drove to Michigan with his father to visit Martelli. Every year, he’d trek to Burlington to see Tom Brennan, the men’s basketball coach at the University of Vermont.

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Brennan was among his closest friends. They first met in the 1970s, when the coach was assisting Rollie Massimino at Villanova. Brennan was hired by Yale in 1982, overlapping with DiJulia in Connecticut, which brought them even closer.

The two men discovered that they had a similar sense of humor; or as Pat put it, were “both crazy.” Games at Yale eventually led to daily phone calls, which led to trips to Vermont. In late November 2001, DiJulia visited Brennan when Cleveland State was in town, led by Massimino.

After the game, they got dinner with a few other coaches and family members. At one point, DiJulia asked Massimino a question that silenced the entire room.

“He said, ‘Rollie,’” Brennan recalled. “And back then, nobody called him Rollie. It was ‘Coach Mass.’”

The head coach turned to DiJulia, with an air of incredulity.

“Rollie?” Massimino said. “Rollie???”

The St. Joe’s fan grinned.

“That’s your name, ain’t it?”

DiJulia was a fixture at the University of Vermont. Every time he visited, he’d sit on the bench, right next to Brennan, tasked with keeping track of timeouts. This didn’t always go according to plan.

In February 1991, Vermont played at Delaware. It was a close game in the final minutes. Vermont was down three with the ball. Brennan turned to DiJulia and asked if they had any timeouts.

He said yes, but had counted incorrectly. Vermont got a technical foul. Delaware made one of two free throws, took possession of the ball, and won the game.

“The fun they’ve had with that over the years...” said Don.

Chris was also a regular on Brennan’s sports talk radio show on WCPV-FM. One time, he got the coach out of a parking ticket, because a police officer recognized DiJulia, and decided not to “mess up DeJules’ weekend.”

He was so beloved that in 2005, when Vermont was playing to reach the NCAA tournament, a booster chartered a plane to fly DiJulia to Burlington for the America East final. A gaggle of reporters met him at the airport.

After DiJulia returned home, Brennan checked in with his friend.

“I said, “Are you going to see St. Joe’s [in the NIT]?” Brennan recalled. “And he said, ‘Yeah... commercial.’ You got some balls. Commercial!

“But people just loved him. They loved him.”

DiJulia’s unflinching honesty was a big reason why. In the mid 1990s, amid a stretch of below-.500 seasons, he penned an angry letter to Phillies team president Dave Montgomery.

Montgomery invited him to his box, with Brennan and Don DiJulia. The executive asked what he could do for the frustrated fan.

“And he said, ‘The first thing is to stop our team from sucking,’” Brennan recalled.

(Montgomery and DiJulia went on to have a very close relationship, one that improved when the Phillies ended their World Series drought in 2008.)

“He was always ready,” Brennan said. “You couldn’t throw him off his game, man.”

DiJulia’s health declined over the past two years. He could no longer feed himself or travel. Sitting on the bench at St. Joe’s was not possible; neither was attending games at Citizens Bank Park.

But DiJulia adjusted, as he always did. He continued to work the phones, keeping in touch with coaches. He’d follow his favorite teams remotely, either on TV or an internet stream, rather than in person.

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And through it all, he never lost his spirit. Last Easter, DiJulia’s sister, Tyl Sadoff, gifted him a T-shirt. On the front was a message he thought was hilarious: “Just call me Jesus, I keep coming back.”

Perhaps that is the lesson. Even in the darkest of moments, Chris DiJulia was able to laugh. And since his passing, loved ones have found that is the best way to honor him. To share their favorite stories, of their favorite guy, with a tinge of sadness, but a bellyful of joy.