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Was Karen’s father highly respected basketball coach…Al LoBalbo?

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/11/sports/al-lobalbo-82-a-basketball-coach-50-years.html

Al LoBalbo, 82, a Basketball Coach 50 Years
By FRANK LITSKY
Published: January 11, 2002

Al LoBalbo, who in 11 seasons as a head coach made Fairleigh Dickinson University's basketball team a national leader on defense and as an assistant coach helped teach defense for Bobby Knight at Army and Lou Carnesecca at St. John's, died of pneumonia Saturday at a convalescent home in Mountainside, N.J. He was 82.

In his 50-year career, LoBalbo coached Hubie Brown at St. Mary's High School in Elizabeth, N.J., and Mike Krzyzewski in college at Army. Brown, a television analyst and former professional coach, once said the two people who had influenced him most were his father and LoBalbo. Knight, now coaching at Texas Tech, said he was unsure he had ever met anyone who enjoyed teaching more than LaBalbo did.

LaBalbo coached high school teams at St. Mary's (1947-62) and Belleville, N.J. (1962-67). Then he was Knight's assistant at Army (1967-69), head coach at Fairleigh Dickinson (1969-80) and a St. John's assistant under Carnesecca and then Brian Mahoney (1980-96).

When LoBalbo was coaching at Army and Fairleigh Dickinson, he also taught high school.

''He was a throwback to the old coach,'' Carnesecca said. ''He broke in when you taught six classes a day and coached the varsity, J.V. and freshman teams and there was no money.''

Knight said: ''He had this tremendous passion for basketball and really enjoyed sharing it with people. When he coached at West Point, he taught at Belleville, then drove more than two hours to practice, then drove home at night, and those roads weren't among the best weather spots in the world during winter.''

LaBalbo wanted Fairleigh Dickinson to become a national power and found major teams happy to play his team as an early-season warm-up. In his last eight seasons there, Fairleigh Dickinson played in 37 states against strong rivals like Wake Forest, Texas, Utah, Louisiana State, Georgia and Clemson.

''He believed in playing above your station,'' said Jay Horwitz, who was then Fairleigh Dickinson's sports information director and is now a Mets vice president. ''His dream was to have a facility good enough to have those teams play return games, but the school let him go before his dream was fulfilled.''

LoBalbo's record at Fairleigh Dickinson was 128-142. Although his teams usually lacked height, they invariably ranked among the national leaders in defense. That, plus the bandbox atmosphere of the team's 1,200-seat gymnasium in Rutherford, N.J., scared off potential rivals.

As he once said: ''The trouble is getting teams to play us. That's why we're practically a road team. And we beat somebody with a big reputation and they don't want to play us again.''

His university's athletic reputation remained obscure. In 1976, when his team traveled to Columbia, Mo., to play the University of Missouri, a newspaper there ran a multiple-choice quiz asking readers whether Fairleigh Dickinson was Angie Dickinson's brother, a stripper at a local club or Missouri's opponent. Angie's brother won with 53 percent.

Alfred Anthony LoBalbo was born Jan. 1, 1920, in what is now East Harlem and was raised there and in the Bronx. He earned a bachelor's degree from Iowa State in 1942 and a master's degree from Columbia Teachers College in 1947. He served in the Navy from 1942 to 1945, and after a brief fling as a left-handed pitcher in the minor leagues, he became a basketball coach.

He married Ruth Pierce of Newark in 1967 and lived in Monroe Township, N.J. He is survived by his wife; a daughter, Karen Singer of Cresskill, N.J.; and three grandchildren.

Dick Vitale, the television analyst, recalled LoBalbo. ''The first game I ever coached was in 1964 at Garfield High School in New Jersey,'' Vitale said. ''I was two years out of college and he was established at Belleville. He beat us by a point, and after the game he said, 'Let me tell you, kid, you have a future in this game.' I told him years later, 'You'll never know how much that meant to me.' ''