Lou Carnesecca: A true New York sports icon worthy of the city's love
In this March 12, 1983, file photo, St. John's coach Lou Carnesecca is carried by his team after the Redman beat Boston College 85-77 in the Big East Championship at New York's Madison Square Garden. Credit: AP/G. PAUL BURNETT
It was the spring of 1991, and St. John’s had just lost to eventual champion Duke in a regional final of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Lou Carnesecca invited the several newspaper writers who covered the team to a season-ending lunch at Dante Restaurant, his longtime hangout near campus.
Why not? It seemed like a nice gesture. So this then-30-year-old reporter told his editor he would be gone for a bit and set out from Newsday’s Queens office.
Six hours later . . .
I left the restaurant with a better sense of what a casual lunch with Carnesecca entailed, and with a quintessential New York experience.
Rather than the small table of sportswriters I envisioned, there were long ones that filled the restaurant with several dozen of Looie’s closest friends.
Menus? Um, no. Just rounds of Italian food as chosen by the chef, and even more rounds of red wine bottles.
Scenes from an Italian restaurant on Union Turnpike, hosted by Lou Carnesecca, complete with heartburn and a hangover.
Why bring this up now? Because it is one way among many of illustrating the life and times of Carnesecca, who died Saturday at age 99.
To call him old school would be an understatement.
The guy was born in 1925, two years before television. His father, Alfredo, ran a grocery store in East Harlem.
Carnesecca lived his entire life in and around New York City, other than during his service in World War II, and evolved only grudgingly.
He was a character who reveled in being a character, most of it genuine, some of it shtick and all of it memorable.
And as much as he was a New Yorker out of central casting himself, he knew almost every other famous New Yorker in the sports world of the middle-to-late 20th century. And non-New Yorkers, too.
Basketball was his bailiwick, though.
St. John's basketball coach Lou Carnesecca, center, flanked, by players from left, Ron Stewart, Chris Mullin and Bill Wennington, laugh as they hold the trophy for winning the Holiday Festival College Basketball tournament, December 29, 1984 at New York's Madison Square Garden. Credit: AP/G. PAUL BURNETT
In an interview with Newsday late in 2023, two weeks before his 99th birthday, he was able to offer firsthand opinions on iconic coaches such as Joe Lapchick, John Wooden, Frank McGuire, Adolph Rupp, Nat Holman, Ben Carnevale, Clair Bee and, yes, Rick Pitino.
Like others with images so colorful they threatened to overshadow their accomplishments — Yogi Berra comes to mind — it was easy to forget that Carnesecca knew basketball in general, knew recruiting the streets of New York City in particular and was no one’s pushover.
Most famously, he made the transition from the ancient days of Eastern college basketball’s loose affiliations to become a towering figure in the early Big East Conference.
The pinnacle came in 1985, when he led St. John’s to the Final Four before it fell to mighty Georgetown.
The rivalry between St. John’s and Georgetown that season was and remains one of the highlights in New York City’s long love affair with college basketball.
And it cemented New York’s long love affair with Carnesecca. The feeling was mutual, to understate things.
Lou Carnesecca coaches his St. John's team from the sidelines during their game against Niagara on Nov. 23, 1991. Credit: AP/Mark Lennihan
Carnesecca never did leave his hometown. Why would he? He lived out his final years in Queens, still sharp and witty.
When St. John’s hired Pitino, an old Big East rival, as its coach in 2023, the then-98-year-old showed up at the introductory news conference.
“Lou built a legendary program — legendary — and we will get back to those days by exemplifying everything that he taught,” Pitino said, pointing to Carnesecca.
As he left the event that day, the old man said, “This is a great day, a great day.”
Carnesecca loved all the attention he got in one of his first public outings since the COVID-19 pandemic.
People were his lifeblood, and he could kibitz and zing one-liners with the best of them, from recruits to fans to reporters.
Asked on the cusp of turning 99 what kept him going, he said, “It must be the olive oil.”
Recalling when he denied his father’s wish that he become a doctor, he said, “I thank God in his infinite wisdom. He knew I would have caused more deaths than the bubonic plague.”
Journalists usually must approach modern coaching stars through protective public relations folks.
How did one get an audience with Carnesecca? By showing up unannounced at his office and asking his secretary, “Is Coach around?” (He was the only coach I called “Coach” in 40 years of sportswriting.)
Privately, Carnesecca had a tough side that he could and would aim at those who crossed him.
But his public face never wavered, and his famously raspy voice and accent said it all. He was a New Yorker, troo and troo.
Next round is on me, Coach. No menu required.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.