Don Laux, former basketball player and assistant coach at Hofstra, dies at 87

Brian Laux can travel back in his mind to the early 1970s, when he was about 10 and his dad, Don Laux, was coaching Elmont High School's boys basketball team. He saw his father showing his love for just being a part of the Long Island community of coaches and referees in the sport.

“I can remember as a kid my brother [Paul] and I being with him after games,” Brian said. “He’d just played against Sewanhaka or Floral Park, and he would go to Esposito’s, which is a bar right outside of the track over there at Belmont.

“We would be sitting at the bar having Coke and pretzels, and it would be the two coaches and the two referees that had just been in the game together.”

Don Laux, an accomplished longtime member of that Long Island basketball community, died at his Rockville Centre home Monday due to natural causes. He was 87.

He played for Hofstra and was an assistant coach there and he was a longtime teacher and coach at Elmont, leading the boys and girls programs to a combined record of 295-217. He coached at other high schools and colleges as well.

“Quite frankly, he just loved the game of basketball,” Brian said. “He loved playing it when he was able to do that and he loved coaching it until he was 80.”

Born in Cleveland, Laux grew up primarily in Queens. He became an All-City player at Andrew Jackson High School. Then it was on to Hofstra. He played as a 6-2 swingman for coach Butch van Breda Kolff, becoming the team MVP as a senior in the 1958-59 season.

In 1961, he arrived at Elmont, starting out teaching history and language arts and serving as the junior varsity boys basketball coach and the assistant varsity boys coach.

Those coaching roles lasted five seasons. He took over the varsity in 1966.

A player from the Class of 1972 will never forget what Laux did for him.

Walter Burch missed out on exposure as a junior forward when he was limited to four games by a bone infection in his foot.

“He pushed so hard for me, believed in me, not just in sports, but in everything, just in life,” Burch said from his home in Northridge, California. “Somebody puts their arm around you and says, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll get through this.’ ”

Laux helped attract college interest for him. Burch received a full scholarship to play for Saint Peter’s.

“That led me to my work and my life, everything,” said Burch, a former sports reporter who’s now 69 and working in marketing and advertising. “He’s an amazing man."

His boys coaching run at Elmont ended in 1986 when he took over the varsity girls team, then won two conference titles in three seasons.

“He used to load me with books — motion offense, the Duke offense, run-and-gun game,” said Terry Ianniello, then his young assistant coach and now the school’s longtime volleyball coach. “He just knew the game better than anybody I ever met. … And he was a personable guy. He loved the kids. He became very close to the kids.

“He just was a phenomenal coach. He connected with the kids.”

He also served as a Hofstra assistant under van Breda Kolff for four seasons, ending in 1992. Laux then became an assistant coach at New York Tech. He later took over as the head girls coach at Carle Place and then was an assistant with the Great Neck South girls before stepping away in 2016.

Away from basketball, he was committed to a life of service with his wife, Judi.

“They used to go into prisons, and they had a food pantry that they ran as well,” Brian said.

Laux is survived by Judi and their six children, Donna, Brian, Paul, Alison, David and Matthew, and nine grandchildren.

A wake will be held Sunday from 2-8 p.m. at Towers Funeral Home in Oceanside. There will be a funeral Mass at St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church in Oceanside at 9:45 a.m. on Monday.

“I was thinking about it,” Burch said. “His life really honors every coach, every teacher, every administrator that believes in kids and what they can be.”