RIP Coach Carnesecca

Here's the story my wife wrote on facebook:

Having graduated St. John's, my husband has always been a Lou Carnesecca fan. Never more than the 1985 season. That's the year of the famous sweater. I called Lou up (asking to interview him) since I was a news reporter. I ended up telling Lou the truth - the real reason was I wanted to ask him where he got the sweater so I could get one for my Bob for our anniversary. He said he would take care of it. True to his word, Lou Carnesecca sent us a replica of the famous sweater. 39 years later we're still talking about what a great guy he was !

I'll add, he was never too big to talk to the "little people".
 
I became a fan in grade school in Brooklyn, because my uncle went to St. John's and loved Lapchick. I went to St. John's and loved Looie. Attended SI campus '71-'75, Queens campus '75-'78 never ran into Coach.

I was stunned when Looie took the Nets job because I didn't want him to leave St. John's and didn't think the Pro game suited him. Me and buddies (not St. John's students but all St. John's fans because of Looie) treked out to LI to watch Nets games and we were all Knicks fans. Again because of Looie.

My mom, dear mother in law, dad and all family members loved Looie and none of them cared about college basektball really (except for my sake).

One night at the Garden, I sneak into one of the elevators, and who's on it already. Himself (many years retired). I was effusive, and he said stop talking about him, asked me about me, my name, my years at St. John's, my wife and how many kids, my job, where I lived now, all in the space of 2 minutes, shook my hand and wished me well. I was walking on air.

My sister in law and brother in law went to SJU Queens campus with Enes his daughter and from them and my family, prayers and more to his lovely wife Mary and daughter and may his Soul rest in Heaven, to the most wonderful human being I ever shook the hand of.

P.S.: another one liner, "Looie: what about Rick's transgressions? A. That's why we have confession."
 
A quick Louie story. I was going up the stairs at The Garden and Louie was in front of me (after his retirement and we were in a coaching mess. I don't remember the year) and I said loudly, in an eerie voice, "Louie! Come back! Louie! Come back!" and he started laughing heartily.
Great coach, great person, great human being, wonderful soul. RIP, Coach.
 
Larry Wright said:
But on another note haven’t seen anything from Mullin yet.
Don’t mean that in any negative way. In this day people expect people to put their most personal thoughts on social media which is kind of crazy IMO
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Mully isn't the most eloquent public communicator, but I am certain that deep down he is hurting and misses Coach more than most anyone else.
 
newsman13 said:
Here's the story my wife wrote on facebook:

Having graduated St. John's, my husband has always been a Lou Carnesecca fan. Never more than the 1985 season. That's the year of the famous sweater. I called Lou up (asking to interview him) since I was a news reporter. I ended up telling Lou the truth - the real reason was I wanted to ask him where he got the sweater so I could get one for my Bob for our anniversary. He said he would take care of it. True to his word, Lou Carnesecca sent us a replica of the famous sweater. 39 years later we're still talking about what a great guy he was !

I'll add, he was never too big to talk to the "little people".
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Wow. That is an insane story. He actually sent your wife the sweater to your house?? If that’s true, talk about above and beyond!
 
Beasts of the East said:
Gonzalo,
You are one of the most gracious, well regarded posters on here. Most of us know you are from Spain.

Your posts today remind me of a title not often associated with Coach Carnesecca, namely Ambassador.

Coach was an ambassador for basketball in general, international basketball, St. Johns, the Vincentians, and for God. He always appealed to our better nature, to act in kindness, to support our players and each other. He always praised the Vincentians for guiding him. I'll paraphrase something He said that I read yesterday:

"When I was a student you couldn't walk 5 feet without bumping into a Vincentian. Now they are mostly gone, and we are the Vincentians, to carry their mission."

Wise words.

2 Cor 5:20

"Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God"

Well done, Coach Carnesecca. Well done.
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We all have our stories about coach and here is mine.
It was my 65th birthday and I decided to take my son in law to the game. About 20 minutes into the game my son in law informs me that he was going to get a hot dog at the CA concession stand and asked me if I wanted anything to eat. I informed him that I did not and told him to get back asap. Well a half hour later my son in law has still not returned. As I continue to wait I see Coach Carnesecca coming my way and parks himself right in front of my seat and proceeds to wish me a happy birthday. With that he takes a black felt pen and the hat that my son in law purchased at the book store and he signed the hat for me and shook my hand wishing me a Happy Birthday. You can’t make this stuff up! Who does that today? The answer is Coach Lou Carnesecca! That hat to this day is kept in a sealed glass case in my office, always to be cherished!
 
fan since 65 said:
One of my stories about Coach: Took PeoplExpress to Pittsburgh (probably $19 of $29 each way) in January 1986 for a game, staying at the same hotel with the team (Dennis Myron told us which one). We get there but due to a fire we were switched to another hotel, same one as the team of course. Hotel has a nightclub off of the lobby, Coach sees us checking in and was annoyed even though he knew us because he was copying Hoya Paranoia at the time. Dennis told him that the new hotel was ours from the start and the only reason the team was there also was due to the fire. But he also didn't approve of the nightclub complete with waitresses just off the lobby and wanted to change hotels. Dennis convinced him that there wouldn't be much available elsewhere late on a Friday night for a traveling party of 25-30. We also volunteered, along with Dutch Ouderkirk, to guard the bar/nightclub to make sure no players came in. Tough job but we took one for the team.

We won by a point so our guard duty worked.

"Berry did all that and more today as he scored 34 points and brought St. John's from a 15-point deficit to a 68-67 victory over Pittsburgh before a capacity crowd of 6,798 at Fitzgerald Field House."

''It was a great, great comeback,'' said Lou Carnesecca, the Redmen's coach, who watched his team come from 14 down against Connecticut last Saturday. The Redmen won that game, 61-60, and now they have a 19-2 mark, 6-1 in the Big East Conference. Pitt slipped to 13-6 and 4-4."

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I use to crack up all of the time when they would talk about Hoya Paranoia and staying at out of the way lodgings for games as we tended to do the same thing.
 
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