Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Native Rhode Islander and URI graduate Andy Yosinoff has been nominated for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame for the second time.
Typically, when you hear someone’s name that is nominated for a Hall of Fame induction in any major sport, there’s a good chance that there is some “fame” associated with that particular name being nominated. Not so much with Andy Yosinoff.
A little background.
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Andy grew up in Pawtucket and attended Pawtucket West High School, where he graduated in 1966. Although he played on the basketball team, his main love and best sport was tennis. He was proficient enough at tennis, and after leading his high school team to the State Finals in 1966, he received a tennis scholarship from the University of Rhode Island. There, his athletic success continued as he anchored the only undefeated URI Tennis team in their history in 1970. After his team won the Yankee Conference Championship that year, all further NCAA competition was suspended due to all the societal demonstrations and upheaval due to the unpopularity of the Vietnam War.
While at URI, Yosinoff received his degree in Physical Education, interning at Narragansett Middle School and the Ladd School, which operated until 1993 as a place specializing in the care of people with disabilities. After graduating from URI, Yosinoff went to the University of Miami, Ohio, where he earned a Master’s in Education.
I should also mention at this point as a portend to the future that Yosinoff mentioned that he acquired his initial basketball coaching experience coaching the Phi Mu Delta intramural team – he must have had some ringers since he relayed to me that they went undefeated all three years he coached them.
In 1973, Yosinoff embarked on his long career in public education in the City of Boston, where he taught Physical Ed for 10 years in a number of inner-city middle and high schools before landing in the more demanding, specialized field of Adaptive Physical Education for the most challenged segment of high school students, those with disabilities. He stayed in that part of Boston’s school department from 1982 until 2008.
Along the way, in 1977, Andy responded to a notice put out by Emmanuel College, which was in the process of fielding interviews for a tennis coaching vacancy. He showed up for the interview only to be told by the Athletic Director that I’m sorry to tell you but we just hired someone for that position. He was just about to leave when something possessed him to ask, “Do you need a basketball coach?” The AD responded, “Well, yes.” That serendipitous meeting was the beginning of a very successful and long 48 years of coaching women’s college basketball.
Fast forward to today, Yosinoff is the 2nd winningest coach among active women’s coaches, behind only UConn’s Geno Auriemma, including all Division 1, 2, and 3 programs.
Among Division 3 women’s coaches, he has the most wins all-time at 920. Yosinoff’s Emmanuel’s teams have made the NCAA Tournament 21 times, highlighted by his best team in 2001, which made the Final 4. Since joining the Great Northeast Athletic Conference in 1995, Emmanuel’s record under his guidance has amassed an impressive 322 wins and only 24 losses.
I could tell that Andy was very proud to mention that he was the recipient of the 2012 “Red Auerbach National Coach of the Year” award given to the best Jewish coach each year. Having been drafted by Red in 1974, I’ve also been very appreciative of the inclusion of Yiddish wisdom into the game of basketball. By the way, as of January 13, according to the AP rankings, 3 of the top 5 NCAA teams happened to be coached by Jewish coaches (Auburn, Florida, and Duke).
Some criticize the broad brush the Basketball HOF utilizes in choosing its members, offering the argument that the Baseball HOF, which started in 1939, has only 346 inductees, and Football, which commenced in 1963, has only 378, while the Basketball HOF starting in 1959, has as of 2024, 436 recipients of that prestigious honor.
John Doleva, who is President and CEO of the Naismith HOF, is quoted defending the exclusivity argument, “I’m used to explaining its different than football and baseball, because football and baseball cover the men’s game professionally, end of story. Naismith invented this game for everyone: men, women, high school, college, pro, coaches, players. We really represent the entire game, so we have a broader class.”
When you research the process of how someone is finally voted in, it seems like a fairly Byzantine process, whereby there are three different committees representing three different categories that require someone nominated within each respective category to get a minimum of a certain amount of votes (in the women category 5 of the 7 members) to be bumped up to the final Committee that chooses the inductees.
When you go to the HOF website, you can see Yosinoff as one of 21 coaches and players nominated (9 coaches, 12 players) in the Women’s category.
Yosinoff’s accomplishments as a Women’s basketball coach are indeed impressive and are the main reason he is being considered for this honor. But I can’t help but think of all the young people’s lives he touched as a teacher in the Boston public school system, and especially all those least fortunate among us – all those young souls he encountered dealing with a physical handicap that relegated them to the sidelines where they had to vicariously watch their more blessed schoolmates experience the highs and lows of athletic competition.
I know I’ll be right there with them, pulling for Yosinoff’s inclusion into this prestigious club. It would be nice for a little bright light, and “Fame” to go in his direction so that all those students he taught might also be able to feel a bit of that recognition and pride through him.
Kevin Stacom is one of the most accomplished Providence College basketball players in history. An All-American at Providence, Stacom was a second-round NBA draft pick, played six years in the NBA, and won an NBA championship as a member of the Boston Celtics.
After his playing career, Stacom coached at the college level and served as an NBA scout for nearly 30 years for the Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks.
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