jerseyshorejohnny
Well-known member
I had the great pleasure to attend The 7th annual Lapchick Character Award Lunch yesterday at The Wyndhamn New Yorker Hotel on 34th Street.
This year, John Kresse, Gus Alfieri and Clarence "Big House" Gaines were the honorees.
An incredible event ! I would guess it was attended by 250 people.
Coach Carneseccca, John Kresse (Class of '64), Gus Alfieri (Class of '59) and Lou Roethel (Class of '59) gave great speeches.
Coach Carnesecca is amazing. Gave an off the cuff the speech that was nothing short of fantastic. No one like him.
Among those in "the house" were: Bob Hurley Sr., Kevin Joyce (South Carolina), former Hofstra stars Ken Rood and Richie Laurel, George Bruns (Manhattan College), Richie M. Jackson (SJU), Jerry Houston (SJU), Frank Alagia (SJU), John Farmer (SJU), Billy Schaeffer (SJU) , Brian Mahoney (Manhatten and SJU), and Rich Engert (SJU Class of 1959 and a member of Skull and Circle).
Walt Serbiak (a great player in his own right, and Wally's father) was also at the lunch as well as Basketball Scout and Guru, Tom Konchalski.
Earl "The Pearl" Monroe represented his former Winston-Salem State Coach , the late Clarence "Big House" Gaines. Big House coached from 1946 to 1993 and was without a doubt one of the giants of the college basketball. When he retired, only Adolph Rupp had more wins.
Writer George Vescey also attended.
We were also fortunate to have Richard and Barbara Lapchek attend along with their families.
34 of Gus's former players at St. Anthony's High School made the trip into NYC.
Gus earned 304 wins, 4 Long Island Championships, and 2 NY State Championship scoaching The Friars.
Coach Kresse posted a 560-143 record at The College of Charleston !
The team that Gus Alfieri, Lou Roethel, and Rich Engert were members won both The Holiday Festival and the NIT in their senior season (1958-59).
IMO, this team should be in The SJU Hall of Fame.
Coach Kresse mentioned back in the day, the fresham team would play the varsity the night before Thanksgiving The freshman team, coached by John Kresse, beat Coach Carnesecca's varsity team and Coach Kresse thought that he was going to get fired for it.
Thank goodness that didn't happen !!
He also told a quick story that when Bob Cousey was a freshman at Holy Cross College he was homesick and wanted to transfer to St. John's. He wrote a letter to Coach Lapchick requesting his help, but The Coach told him to stick it out, that HC was a great school and that the purpose of going to college was to get an education and not just playing basketball.
Can you imagine that happening toda y ?? !!
Didn't know it until yesterday but Lou Roethel and John Kresse lived in the same building in Ridgewood. Lou is 5 years older and over the years he sort of adopted John as his younger brother. They are still close these many years later.
Lou, by the way, has a doctorate, started the basketball program at Nassau Community College and has been a Math professor there for 54 years !!!!
Both Lou and Rich Engertw were Math majors at SJU. They were going to major in Physics but labs were the same time as practice.
For those of a certain age there were quite a few stories about playing ball at the Grover Cleveland Park/League.
As amazing as this sounds, SJU paid for the undergrad AND graduate degrees for Gus, Lou and Rich. That would probably be an NCAA violation today.
Gus received his degrees in history and later received a doctorate from Stony Brook.
John Kresse's freshman coach at SJU was "Mr. St. John's" Jack Kaiser.
Coach Kresse "walked on" a sophomore.
Coach Carnesecca told a quick story about his first year as the assistant to Coach Lapchick. Joe had to go into Manhattan for a meeting and he asked Lou to run the practice. During the practice, two guys who didn't particularly like each other got into a fight. After the brawl, Coach Carnesecca then called off the practice.
The next day, Coach Lapchick asked Coach Carnesecca how the practice went. Lou told him and advised that onre of the two should be kicked off the team. Coach Lapchick told him that any coach could do that but it was up to them to get the two to play together.
Lou Roethel later said that he was at that practice and after the fight, the two unnamed player played better than they ever did prior to the scuffle.
This year, John Kresse, Gus Alfieri and Clarence "Big House" Gaines were the honorees.
An incredible event ! I would guess it was attended by 250 people.
Coach Carneseccca, John Kresse (Class of '64), Gus Alfieri (Class of '59) and Lou Roethel (Class of '59) gave great speeches.
Coach Carnesecca is amazing. Gave an off the cuff the speech that was nothing short of fantastic. No one like him.
Among those in "the house" were: Bob Hurley Sr., Kevin Joyce (South Carolina), former Hofstra stars Ken Rood and Richie Laurel, George Bruns (Manhattan College), Richie M. Jackson (SJU), Jerry Houston (SJU), Frank Alagia (SJU), John Farmer (SJU), Billy Schaeffer (SJU) , Brian Mahoney (Manhatten and SJU), and Rich Engert (SJU Class of 1959 and a member of Skull and Circle).
Walt Serbiak (a great player in his own right, and Wally's father) was also at the lunch as well as Basketball Scout and Guru, Tom Konchalski.
Earl "The Pearl" Monroe represented his former Winston-Salem State Coach , the late Clarence "Big House" Gaines. Big House coached from 1946 to 1993 and was without a doubt one of the giants of the college basketball. When he retired, only Adolph Rupp had more wins.
Writer George Vescey also attended.
We were also fortunate to have Richard and Barbara Lapchek attend along with their families.
34 of Gus's former players at St. Anthony's High School made the trip into NYC.
Gus earned 304 wins, 4 Long Island Championships, and 2 NY State Championship scoaching The Friars.
Coach Kresse posted a 560-143 record at The College of Charleston !
The team that Gus Alfieri, Lou Roethel, and Rich Engert were members won both The Holiday Festival and the NIT in their senior season (1958-59).
IMO, this team should be in The SJU Hall of Fame.
Coach Kresse mentioned back in the day, the fresham team would play the varsity the night before Thanksgiving The freshman team, coached by John Kresse, beat Coach Carnesecca's varsity team and Coach Kresse thought that he was going to get fired for it.
Thank goodness that didn't happen !!
He also told a quick story that when Bob Cousey was a freshman at Holy Cross College he was homesick and wanted to transfer to St. John's. He wrote a letter to Coach Lapchick requesting his help, but The Coach told him to stick it out, that HC was a great school and that the purpose of going to college was to get an education and not just playing basketball.
Can you imagine that happening toda y ?? !!
Didn't know it until yesterday but Lou Roethel and John Kresse lived in the same building in Ridgewood. Lou is 5 years older and over the years he sort of adopted John as his younger brother. They are still close these many years later.
Lou, by the way, has a doctorate, started the basketball program at Nassau Community College and has been a Math professor there for 54 years !!!!
Both Lou and Rich Engertw were Math majors at SJU. They were going to major in Physics but labs were the same time as practice.
For those of a certain age there were quite a few stories about playing ball at the Grover Cleveland Park/League.
As amazing as this sounds, SJU paid for the undergrad AND graduate degrees for Gus, Lou and Rich. That would probably be an NCAA violation today.
Gus received his degrees in history and later received a doctorate from Stony Brook.
John Kresse's freshman coach at SJU was "Mr. St. John's" Jack Kaiser.
Coach Kresse "walked on" a sophomore.
Coach Carnesecca told a quick story about his first year as the assistant to Coach Lapchick. Joe had to go into Manhattan for a meeting and he asked Lou to run the practice. During the practice, two guys who didn't particularly like each other got into a fight. After the brawl, Coach Carnesecca then called off the practice.
The next day, Coach Lapchick asked Coach Carnesecca how the practice went. Lou told him and advised that onre of the two should be kicked off the team. Coach Lapchick told him that any coach could do that but it was up to them to get the two to play together.
Lou Roethel later said that he was at that practice and after the fight, the two unnamed player played better than they ever did prior to the scuffle.
