Curran's death was confirmed by Richard Karsten, president of Molloy. Curran
had lung and kidney problems, and had broken a kneecap in a fall in
February.
“But we were expecting him back in a few weeks, in time to coach the baseball season,” Karsten said.
Again, Curran was eighty-two years old.
In 1958, Curran was living in West Springfield, Mass., and working as a
building supplies salesman when one morning, over coffee in a diner, he
read in a newspaper that St. John’s University, his alma mater, had
hired Lou Carnesecca as an assistant basketball coach. Carnesecca had
been the baseball and basketball coach at Molloy; Curran applied for the
newly vacant jobs, was hired and held onto the positions for 55 years.
That's longer than I've been alive!
Molloy was a powerhouse under his leadership. His teams won 22 Catholic
school New York City championships, 5 in basketball and 17 in baseball.
Four times — in 1969, 1973, 1974 and 1987 — Molloy won both in the same
year.
Curran coached Brian Winters, Kenny Smith, Kenny Anderson and Kevin
Joyce, all of whom played in the N.B.A. The current Mets outfielder Mike
Baxter played baseball at Molloy for Curran.
Over all, Curran’s record was 972-437 as a basketball coach and 1,708-523 as a baseball coach, the school said.
“He won everything except World War III,” Carnesecca, who spent 24 seasons as the head coach at St. John’s, said about Curran in a 2008 interview in The New York Times. “No one in the country has Jack’s record in both sports, no one.”
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