Cazzetta was promoted to replace
John Castellani as head coach at
Seattle in 1959, where the team had received a two-year postseason ban due to NCAA violations. He ranked second in school history with a .711 winning percentage and 96 wins. On February 7, 1963, he resigned as coach with nine games left in the season after a dispute with management. Athletic director Eddie O'Brien had refused to give Cazzetta total control of the program in terms of scheduling and budget and the faculty board sided with O'Brien, which led Cazzetta to cite "willful interference" by O'Brien as his reason for leaving; Cazzetta's son later stated that his father was fired after committing an infraction by purchasing a plane ticket home for a player from
Washington, D.C. on Christmas.. Cazzetta moved on to become an assistant coach at the
University of Rhode Island from 1963 to 1967. Cazzetta became head coach of the fledgling
Pittsburgh Pipers during the ABA's first season. He made major changes to the roster throughout the season; at the end of the season the team only had four players who had been there at the start of the season. His personality as a coach was cited as a key reason the team pulled together and won the championship. During the season the Pipers had winning streaks of 15 and 12 games and won 18 out of 19 games at one point. The Pipers won the
1968 ABA Championship in seven games over the
New Orleans Buccaneers. Cazzetta was the ABA's Coach of the Year for the 1967–68 season. As it turned out, the Game 7 win on May 4 was his final game as a coach. The Pipers were soon on the block to relocate to Minnesota, as the state had lost the
Minnesota Muskies to a group that bought and moved them to
Miami. With the league not wanting a bad look on having league offices in Minnesota without a team, efforts were done to have a chunk of the Pipers bought and then relocated. Cazzetta resigned as coach of the Pipers after team owner Gabe Rubin refused to grant him a raise (specifically a $10,000 raise and $2,000 in moving expenses) in order to help move his wife and six children, as the franchise was leaving Pittsburgh to become the
Minnesota Pipers. Rubin, incensed by Cazetta leaving, went on to call him a "nobody" where the team won in spite of him. As it turned out, the owners' refusal and move were both mistakes, with the team returning to Pittsburgh as the Pipers after only one season in Minnesota. Cazzetta was replaced as the Pipers' head coach by
Jim Harding of
LaSalle College. Cazzetta, asked years later about the departure, stated, "Selfishly, I wish I had gone. But I don't regret it from a family standpoint." For his efforts as a coach, he was inducted into the Connecticut High School Coaches Hall of Fame and the New Britain Sports Hall of Fame. ==Later life==