Rick Pitino remembers love, respect everyone had for Lou Carnesecca
St. John's head coach Rick Pitino, left, and former St. John's head coach Lou Carnesecca. Credit: AP / Adam Hunger; AP / Mark Lennihan
Rick Pitino was a 33-year-old rising star that had been hired off the Knicks’ bench to coach Providence when he attended his first gathering of Big East coaches and Lou Carnesecca made an impression. The whirling dervish from the St. John’s sideline who coached every possession with passion was the voice of reason when anything was in dispute in a group that had coached the conference to the apex of collegiate basketball.
“Lou was obviously one of the big characters in the Big East, standing [with] John Thompson, Jim Boeheim, Rollie Massimino and Jim Calhoun,” Pitino told Newsday. “They were fixtures in the Big East and college basketball and . . . had opinions. But when a calming voice was needed in the room — somebody to think of the league first and not his team — it was always Lou.”
“There wasn't one person who disliked Lou in those Big East meetings and everybody deferred to [him],” he added. “Sure, they poked fun at him and joked around with him but in the end it was the ultimate in respect from some very big [personalities].”
It was a stark contrast for him going against Carnesecca and the Red Storm.
“He was fiercely competitive and very [demonstrative] in front of the bench,” Pitino said. “It was very different away from the sidelines where he was such a gentleman. He got after the referees hot. . . . did not care for them, but he never humiliated [them]. He worked them in a funny way because of his mannerisms, but he also had no problem letting them know the F-word.”
Carnesecca was so prone to working the entire sideline that when the NCAA instituted the coaching box — and he started getting called for technical fouls — head athletic trainer Ron Linfonte was asked by St. John’s assistant coaches Brian Mahoney and Ron Rutledge to sit between Carnesecca and the scorer’s table.
“We had our little physical tussles with me telling him to get back,” Linfonte said. “Finally, he told me ‘just grab me by my belt.’”
Carnesecca was welcoming when Pitino was hired to take over the St. John’s program and sat up front at his introductory news conference. And the new coach pointed to the old one during his remarks and said, “Lou built a legendary program — legendary — and we will get back to those days by exemplifying everything that he taught.”
“Lou epitomized what John Wooden was to UCLA or . . . what Mike [Krzyzewski] is to Duke,” Pitino said Monday in an appearance on WFAN. “He epitomized all the great things about St John's: humble, hardworking [and] just cared about the players more than themselves. Just a special, special man.”
Respectful as he is, Pitino still remembers the competition. In his first season with the Friars, St. John’s won both regular season meetings. In his second — when Providence reached the Final Four — the Friars beat Carnesecca’s Storm in both regular season meetings and again in the conference tournament. And one of those wins provided one of his favorite stories, which he told at his first on-campus media day and again Monday on the radio.
Providence had a one-point lead when the ball went out of bounds and Carnesecca was insisting to the game officials that there should still be one second on the clock. Pitino rushed his team off the court, into the locker room and into the showers.
“I ripped his shirt off Billy Donovan and said ‘get in the shower, take your shoes off,” he said.
When the game officials came to the locker room to tell Pitino to bring his team back to the court because Carnesecca had succeeded in pleading his case, Pitino pointed to players showering only to have one of the officials inquire “do your players always shower with their socks on?’
“We played some great game and Lou was always a gentleman,” Pitino said. “He shook your hand with two hands when he won and one hand when he lost.”
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.