Courtesy of FordhamSports.com.
Former long time Fordham Athletic Director Frank McLaughlin and legendary retired-St. John’s basketball coach and Hall of Famer Lou Carnesecca will be among five athletic administrators honored by the Eastern College Athletic Conference and Madison Square Garden during ceremonies at half time of the Fordham-St. John’s game at the ECAC Madison Square Garden Holiday Festival on Saturday.
McLaughlin, Fordham’s AD for 27 years, Rich Petriccione of Iona College, Bob Mulcahy of Rutgers University, and Jack Kaiser from St. John’s University will be feted with Lifetime Achievement Awards. “Looie” will receive a Lifetime Coaching Excellence Award. Tip-off is at 7:00pm. Saturday will mark the first time the awards have been presented.
Here are their biographies:
FRANK McLAUGHLIN
After 27 years in the role of Director of Athletics at Fordham University, last summer Frank McLaughlin was promoted to Associate Vice President of Student Affairs for Athletic Alumni Relations and External Affairs and Athletic Director Emeritus.
McLaughlin has been at Fordham since taking over as the Athletic Director at his alma mater in 1985. After serving as the athletic director for 13 years, McLaughlin was promoted to Executive Director of Intercollegiate Athletics and Recreation in the spring of 1998.
Under McLaughlin’s tenure, the Fordham University athletic department experienced numerous changes. Chief among them are improvements to the University’s Athletic physical plant and increases to the Fordham coaching, administrative and support staffs for athletics. He also directed the addition of women’s soccer and rowing as a varsity sports.
Academically, Fordham annually ranks among the leaders in the number of student-athletes named to the Atlantic 10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll and has routinely been among the national leaders in NCAA Academic Progress Rates, ranking 18th in the country in 2011.
A 1969 Fordham graduate and standout basketball student-athlete, McLaughlin captained the Rams during his senior season and was drafted by the New York Knicks. He was an assistant coach at Holy Cross, Fordham and Notre Dame, and was head coach at Harvard from 1977-1985.
McLaughlin is being inducted into the Fordham Athletic HOF in January.
RICH PETRICCIONE
Rich Petriccione served the Iona College Athletics Department as a student, assistant coach, and director of athletics for over 20 years, from 1977 to 2001.
After serving as a student manager for the Gaels’ first two men’s basketball teams to reach the NCAA Tournament, he was named an assistant basketball coach at age 20. During his five seasons as an assistant to Pat Kennedy, the team won over 100 games and went to four consecutive post-season tournaments.
In 1989, Petriccione became the nation’s youngest Division I Athletics Director. In his 12 years as the Gaels’ AD, Petriccione started women’s track and cross country, enlarged the operational and scholarship budgets of all women’s programs, hired Iona’s first minority head coaches and administrators, brought football back to campus, helped steer the men’s cross country program to national prominence, coached the women’s tennis team, created full-time positions for most head coaches, improved the quality of medical care and experience for 400 student-athletes, and saw the student-athlete cumulative GPA rise above 3.0 for the first time.
He was named a Special Assistant to the President while Athletics Director, and helped create the vision and secure gifts for the refurbishment of the Mulcahy Gym, and the creation of the Hynes Athletic Center and the Robert V. LaPenta Student Union. He was promoted to Vice President for Advancement and External Affairs in 2001.
Petriccione is currently the Senior Vice-President for Philanthropy for the 2014 New York/New Jersey Super Bowl Host company. He was named to the Iona College Goal Club Hall of Fame in 2006.
JOHN W. KAISER
Jack Kaiser has been an important part of the St. John’s University athletic program for more than 60 years, beginning as a student-athlete and continuing with a 22-year coaching career from 1952 to 1973. Kaiser then went on to become the Director of Athletics from 1973 to 1995 and now serves as the Athletics Director Emeritus.
Following a high school basketball coaching stint while also pursuing a professional baseball career, Kaiser returned to St. John’s as an assistant coach for the baseball and basketball teams in 1952. He was an assistant coach in the baseball program and coached St. John’s freshman and junior varsity basketball teams to a winning percentage over .800.
Four years later, he began an 18-year Hall of Fame coaching career, with a 366-115 career coaching record, led the program to 11 postseason appearances and three College World Series.
In 1973, Kaiser became Athletic Director at St. John’s, a position he held from 1973 to 1995. In his first year in the position, Kaiser became President of the National Invitational Tournament Committee in basketball and held that position until 1988. He remained a member through 1995, and has since worked as a consultant for the preseason and postseason events.
Six years into his tenure as Athletic Director at St. John’s, Kaiser was a major influence in the formation of the BIG EAST Conference and several years later was instrumental in the formation of the BIG EAST Baseball Conference.
Kaiser is a member of the American Baseball Coaches Association and Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League Halls of Fame.
ROBERT E. MULCAHY, III
Robert E. Mulcahy, III spent over 10 years as Director of Athletics at Rutgers University and guided the Scarlet Knights’ athletic program to unprecedented heights. Arriving in New Brunswick in 1998 after spending 19 years as the President and CEO of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, Mulcahy is noted for having raised the Athletic Department’s endowment, in obtaining funding from the New Jersey legislature for a massive renovation of Rutgers athletic facilities, and in getting increased television coverage for Rutgers’ Scarlet Knights football.
During Mulcahy’s tenure Rutgers Athletics was ranked in the top 20 nationally for its athletic and academic achievements. In his final full year at Rutgers, seven of the Scarlet Knights sports were ranked in the top 20 percentile nationally in NCAA Academic Progress Rate Rankings, led by the football, women’s tennis and men’s cross country teams that were in the upper 10th percentile.
Community involvement and community service were a priority for Rutgers student-athletes under Mulcahy’s leadership. Among the projects adopted were a holiday toy drive, student-athlete blood drives, the “Read Across America” program, and area hospital visits.
The recipient of numerous awards over his career, Mulcahy is a member of the New Jersey Sports Hall of Fame and received the Knight of St. Gregory Medal from Pope John Paul II.
RICH PETRICCIONE
Rich Petriccione served the Iona College Athletics Department as a student, assistant coach, and director of athletics for over 20 years, from 1977 to 2001.
After serving as a student manager for the Gaels’ first two men’s basketball teams to reach the NCAA Tournament, he was named an assistant basketball coach at age 20. During his five seasons as an assistant to Pat Kennedy, the team won over 100 games and went to four consecutive post-season tournaments.
In 1989, Petriccione became the nation’s youngest Division I Athletics Director. In his 12 years as the Gaels’ AD, Petriccione started women’s track and cross country, enlarged the operational and scholarship budgets of all women’s programs, hired Iona’s first minority head coaches and administrators, brought football back to campus, helped steer the men’s cross country program to national prominence, coached the women’s tennis team, created full-time positions for most head coaches, improved the quality of medical care and experience for 400 student-athletes, and saw the student-athlete cumulative GPA rise above 3.0 for the first time.
He was named a Special Assistant to the President while Athletics Director, and helped create the vision and secure gifts for the refurbishment of the Mulcahy Gym, the creation of the Hynes Athletic Center and the Robert V. LaPenta Student Union. He was promoted to Vice President for Advancement and External Affairs in 2001.
Petriccione is currently the Senior Vice-President for Philanthropy for the 2014 New York/New Jersey Super Bowl Host company. He was named to the Iona College Goal Club Hall of Fame in 2006.
Coach Lou Carnesecca
Lou Carnesecca is a legend in New York and college basketball circles worldwide. He is synonymous with St. John’s University Basketball and the ECAC Holiday Festival, having coached at the University for 24 seasons prior to his retirement in 1992.
During those 24 seasons he never failed to qualify for a postseason tournament and compiled a record of 526 wins and 200 losses. Coach Carnesecca directed the team to 20 or more victories in a season on 18 separate occasions.
Carnesecca has coached and won more games in the ECAC Holiday Festival than any other coach. His St. John’s teams won eight ECAC Holiday Festival crowns.
The coach was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 1992. In 1991, he became only the 30th NCAA Division I coach to reach the 500 career victory mark. In 1988-89, he directed his team to a record fifth NIT title.
Carnesecca was named BIG EAST Coach of the Year three times and chosen Metropolitan Area Coach of the Year six times by the New York Basketball Writers Association. In addition, he has two BIG EAST titles to his credit, winning in the 1983 and 1986 seasons.
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