New York to Honor Carnesecca

Lou Carnesecca has spent his life in New York City.

He grew up on the East Side of Manhattan, went to school at St. John’s in Brooklyn and then spent 24 seasons as his alma mater’s coach after it moved to Queens.

On Tuesday night, the 76-year-old Carnesecca will be honored by Madison Square Garden when a banner with his name will raised to the ceiling of “The World’s Most Famous Arena.”

His sense of humor showed when he was asked about his name heading for the rafters.

“Hey, in my father’s delicatessen the only thing on the ceiling was the sawdust-covered prosciutto and no one ever wanted that,” he said.

It seems everyone wants to be there when Carnesecca is honored at halftime of St. John’s game against No. 24 Connecticut.

About 150 former players will celebrate with Carnescca. Countless stories will be told, most of them by the coach known for a clean, winning program and some very ugly sweaters.

“The only time I played in the Garden was in high school and I got in late in a blowout and my only shot ended up on Eighth Avenue,” he said.

Carnesecca’s first coaching job was at St. Ann’s High School--which later became Archbishop Molloy--and his first game was at the old Madison Square Garden.

“Brother Patrick O’Hagen had to take me out of the closet. I was so nervous. If that building were still there, you would be able to see the black marks my heels made as they dragged me out,” he said. “Thank God there weren’t a lot of people there. Rocco Valvano, Jimmy’s dad, was the other coach, for St. Nicholas of Tolentine. Then Danny Doyle hit seven jump shots and I said, ‘This is easy.’ We won that one then lost the next nine.”

There weren’t many more losses, especially when he joined Joe Lapchick’s staff at St. John’s.

Carnesecca speaks with reverence of the man he would succeed as the coach of the then-Redmen and one of his favorite memories of him involves the Garden.

“Lapchick used to smoke and we would burn our pants, jackets, everything because he would light one up, put it down and forget about it,” Carnesecca said. “In 1962 we played Ohio State with (Jerry) Lucas and (John) Havlicek and we went up 15 or so and they came out in the second half and pressed us and we got beat.

“We were staying in the city to play Utah and Billy ‘The Thrill’ McGill the next day. Lapchick was so upset we went outside the Garden and started walking. We got to 14th Street, a couple of miles, and we finally realized it was snowing. We were covered with it. Then we realized how upset we were because we had passed Mama Leone’s.”

Carnesecca’s first game as a head coach at the Garden was another night of nerves, this time a two-point loss to Villanova.

“I brought the guys together in the huddle before the game for a prayer and instead of the ‘Hail Mary,’ I started saying the ‘Act of Contrition,”’ he said.

Carnesecca will be the 13th person honored with a banner at Madison Square Garden and the second coach. Red Holzman, who led the New York Knicks to two NBA championships, is up there with a banner that says “613,” the number of games he won with the team.

Carnesecca’s banner will have “526,” how many games he won in his career. His teams reached the postseason in each of his 24 seasons at St. John’s.

He rattles off several games when asked about his favorite in the building. He says No. 1 Indiana’s 76-69 win over ninth-ranked St. John’s in the 1975 Holiday Festival was his toughest loss.

“Scott May’s jump shot from the corner was a dagger in my heart,” Carnesecca said of the Indiana team that went on to become the last unbeaten national champion.

He also remembers coaching against former Marquette coach Al McGuire, who died Friday at age 72.

“He was fun to be with, not fun to play against,” said Carnesecca, a friend and schoolmate of McGuire at St. John’s.

Carnesecca was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. That was in Springfield, Mass. This honor will be at 34th and 7th.

“It means so much because the guys on the East Side are around to see it. It’s your back yard, a place that means so much to you,” he said. “We’ve had a very rich and glorious tradition and I’m sure a lot of guys deserve to be up there. To be the one is something I won’t ever forget. It’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling.”