Bio

Mark Sapita is the assistant women’s basketball coach at Penn State Altoona, a position he has held since the 2020-21 season.

Sapita’s basketball coaching career began at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he served as a student assistant under head coach Carolyn Thompson. He went on to become the head coach at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown, where he took over from head coach Rob Eckenrode. At McCort, Sapita helped lead his team to a Pennsylvania District 6 championship and an AA Pennsylvania state championship appearance in 1988. He coached two athletes that went on to play at the NCAA Division I level: Noelle Chido (Robert Morris University) and Dawn Figura (Saint Francis University (Pa.)).

Sapita also served as the second assistant coach at Marshall University, where he had both coaching and recruiting responsibilities as a graduate assistant. Sapita went on to become the head coach at South Western High School in Hanover, where he developed a feeder system for a program that had been winless for two seasons. Under his guidance, the program’s number of athletes stabilized from the elementary to senior high school levels.

Sapita assumed the head basketball coaching position at Altoona Area High School, where he succeeded the legendary Art Taneyhill. At Altoona, Sapita’s teams won four Pennsylvania Quad A District 6 championships, and he helped the team reach the Quad A state championship game in 1998. Sapita also coached two more Division I athletes during his time at Altoona: Tiffany Schettig (Manhattan College) and Candace Futrell (Duquesne University, went on to play in the WNBA).