Giovanni Fanta
College basketball broadcaster and reporter
Lou Carnesecca, one of many founding fathers of the Big East Conference and a person who period St. John’s, to not point out some of the colourful personalities in faculty basketball historical past, died Saturday at age 99.
Carnesecca, often called “Looie” for his legendary bench working, was a 1992 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and is all the things the Red Storm and New York City stand for.
At the faculty stage, he coached solely in Queens, main St. John’s to its golden age. He additionally did one thing each New Yorker appreciates: main the Red Storm for twenty-four years with out shedding a season.
He was a central determine, together with commissioner Dave Gavitt, within the formation of the Big East and the early years of the Premier Basketball Conference, main the Johnnies into the league and taking first place in its inaugural season.
In 1984-85, Carnesecca reworked St. John’s from a nationally vital program to at least one worthy of faculty basketball’s largest stage: the Final Four. The Johnnies, led by Chris Mullin and Walter Berry, went 31-4, gained the convention common season title with a 15-1 document and made it to the nationwide semifinals.
The following season, Walter Berry and the Redmen, as they have been recognized then, gained 31 extra video games, taking residence convention common season and match titles. In complete, Carnesecca achieved eighteen 20-win seasons, recorded consecutive 30-win campaigns in 1985 and 1986, and averaged greater than 20 wins per 12 months in his profession. A two-time U.S. Basketball Writers Association Coach of the Year, Carnesecca was named Big East Coach of the Year 3 times.
Carnesecca completed with 526 victories in 24 seasons at St. John’s, averaging 22 per 12 months. He coached the ABA Nets from 1970 to 1973, taking the skilled path and training the Long Island group. But the profession path was not Carnesecca’s love affair, as he mutually parted methods with the group, then returned to Queens to take over after Frank Mulzoff was fired in 1973.
Carnesecca, the one son of Italian immigrants who owned a grocery retailer in Manhattan and was instructed he needs to be a physician, selected teaching as a substitute and went to St. John’s University, the place he was a member of the 1949 Johnnies’ baseball group College World Series Team. After initially taking a highschool basketball teaching job at St. Ann’s in New York, Carnesecca labored with Joe Lapchick as an assistant from 1958 to 1965 at St. John’s earlier than getting the top teaching job when Lapchick retired.
Carnesecca retired from teaching in 1992 however maintained an workplace on the St. John’s campus, holding a job within the athletics division.
“Looie” was ardour personified, and a inventive one at that, recognized for his colourful sweaters that painted an image of the love he had for St. John’s, the love he had for the Big East, the love he had for New York City.
And in return he was cherished a thousand occasions.
Carnesecca was one among one and a defining teaching determine within the historical past of basketball.
John Fanta is a nationwide faculty basketball broadcaster and author for FOX Sports. He covers sports activities in a wide range of roles, from calling video games on FS1 to serving as a lead anchor on the BIG EAST digital community to offering commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him to @John_Fanta.
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