Lou Carnesecca funeral details and St. John's tribute plans
Lou Carnesecca coached St. John's against Niagara on Nov. 23, 1991. Credit: AP/Mark Lennihan
The St. John’s community will be able to say their final farewells to iconic basketball coach Lou Carnesecca on Thursday and Friday and the school has planned an array of things to pay homage to him.
The Thomas F. Dalton Funeral Home in New Hyde Park will host the visitation for the Hall of Fame coach on Thursday beginning at 2 p.m. and ending at 8 p.m. The Dalton Funeral home is located at 125 Hillside Avenue.
The funeral for Carnesecca will be held at 10 a.m. on Friday at the St. Thomas More Church on the St. John’s University campus before a private burial. The funeral mass will be available to be viewed on a live stream at www.stjohns.edu/church.
The men’s and women’s basketball teams will have “Lou” patches on their uniforms beginning with this weekend’s home games and the Carnesecca Arena court is being outfitted with a special decal to honor him. The players will also wear theme warm-up jerseys before the games.
Also beginning with this weekend’s games, the coach’s seat in Section 7 of the arena will no longer be occupied.
The men’s team plays Kansas State at 11:30 on Saturday and the women’s team faces Wake Forest at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Prior to both games, a tribute video will be shown and a moment of silence observed.
Fans who attend either weekend game will receive a commemorative ‘Lou Carnesecca 526’ pin that celebrates his victory total over his 24 years as the Red Storm’s coach as well as a keepsake illustration suitable for framing.
The planned ‘Black Out” concept for the Saturday game has been moved to the Dec. 17 Big East opener against DePaul.
In addition, St. John’s is honoring Carnesecca with electronic billboards all along the Long Island Expressway, Whitestone Expressway and New Jersey Turnpike.
The Red Storm’s Jan. 4 home game against Butler will be an occasion to mark what would be Carnesecca’s 100th birthday (Jan. 5) and fans in attendance will receive replicas of the Hall of Fame coach’s statue that adorns the lobby of the arena.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.