Nearly everything in his home is organic, from his food down to his detergent. His life is constant training, but he doesn't call himself a trainer. Next to his bed is a pair of 45-pound dumbbells, which he uses as a warm-up. Weight vests and belts are stacked on top of cabinets and shelves. In Matrisciano's apartment, jump ropes hang off a hook next to his door. 'The dude,' says Chris Schlatter, a former Washington State basketball player, 'is a physical specimen.

He's a basketball junkie, with several boxes with tapes of old NBA and college games in his bedroom.Ī normal day might be a run where Matrisciano - who says he's 6-foot-1, 225 pounds and has 7 percent body fat - straps on an 84-pound weight vest, clips on a 38-pound belt and trudges for 10 miles along the beach and through sandy hills. He has a chair, side table, mini-fridge, TV, a set of utensils. Matrisciano lives in a tidy, one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. Has one companion, Seminole, a 6-year-old male Siberian husky. Never played competitive sports but grew up training people. He did divulge the barest of bios: He's part Italian and Spanish. 'I'm just a shadow in the background,' says Matrisciano, who did not want his face shown or age divulged for this story, all part of his stealth persona. No known phone number or previous address. He addresses everyone as 'sir,' and that's the name he goes by. His name doesn't appear in any public record.

He has on his signature attire: black shades, cargo shorts, hoodie and Columbia boots.īefore the conversation begins, he asks, 'How'd you get my number, sir?' Matrisciano slumps in a patio chair outside Lettus, an organic cafe in the city. 'I take them to a level they've never been,' Matrisciano says.

He's a man behind the scenes when a player is drafted in the NBA, gets a contract overseas or resurrects his career. Athletes labor up stairs with medicine balls, plod on the beach wearing 50-pound weight vests and slog up sand hills in harnesses being tugged from behind. Matrisciano's playground is San Francisco - its stairs, beaches, sand hills and parks. Athletes call it the most mind-boggling, body-aching workout, period. He calls his workouts chameleon training, adapting to one's surroundings and overcoming any obstacle. His clients have included the Wizards' Gilbert Arenas, the Celtics' Leon Powe and the Pacers' Kareem Rush. Goods is one of the dozens of top-flight basketball players who come to San Francisco to train with a guru the outside world knows little about.

Lulu chu a handy break up