MINOA – Despite a consensus that the recognition is long overdue, family members and friends of Larry Costello are delighted all the same that the Minoa native has been selected for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
A coveted yet just-out-of-reach achievement during his lifetime, the prestigious induction is arriving about two decades after Costello’s death from cancer at the age of 70.
“It’s wonderful to appreciate someone who’s been gone for 21 years, but it would’ve been even better if he was still here,” said his oldest daughter, Lesley Kirby. “I know he’s smiling down from Heaven though, and it makes me very proud.”
The local star earned attention as a three-sport athlete at Minoa High School before the district merged with East Syracuse. He continued on to Niagara University, where he led the freshman basketball team to a 23-0 record and two NIT tournament bids.
Drafted to the NBA in 1954, Costello would end up with the Syracuse Nationals, a franchise that later relocated to Philadelphia and became the 76ers.
Positioned as a combo guard, he fulfilled an integral role alongside fellow hall of famers Wilt Chamberlain, Billy Cunningham, Hal Greer and Chet Walker as part of Philadelphia’s title-winning 1966-67 roster, a team considered by numerous sports analysts to be one of the top few ever assembled on the hardwood.
Though his ripped Achilles tendon proved to be the downfall of his professional playing career, Costello couldn’t stay away from the court for long; he soon took on the head coaching position for the expansion Milwaukee Bucks, and within three years they swept their way to their first NBA championship ring, owing much to his guidance and the talents of such names as Oscar Robertson and Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).
Additionally, the Bucks racked up three 60-win seasons in a row with Costello as coach, immediately followed by one boasting 59 victories.
Recalling her father’s dedicated video room and the hours he would spend running through tapes to pick apart offensive and defensive strategies, Kirby said he always expected his lineups to bring their A game to every practice and every contest.
That standard carried over to his time spent coaching at the Division I level too, as noted by D.J. Carstensen, who played under his watch at Utica College in the 1980s.
“There was never a game that we weren’t prepared for,” Carstensen said, remembering the super-sized, handwritten playbook those Pioneer squads depended upon. “He was demanding, but he was also the hardest-working, most committed person to the game of basketball that I’ve ever been around.”
Now 20-plus years into his profession as an NCAA men’s basketball referee, Carstensen was the man responsible for putting in Costello’s posthumous hall of fame nomination for this year’s class.
The resulting campaign saw Carstensen turn to columnists, coaches who were contemporaries, and other former players of Costello’s for testimonials while completing extensive research about his life work. Along the way, Carstensen noticed through his conversations that several of Costello’s peers and mentees were convinced he had already gained membership to the Naismith Hall of Fame.
Always insistent that his trading cards specifically put down Minoa as his hometown rather than Syracuse, six-time All-Star Costello was known for his high foul-shooting percentage, his two-handed set shot and his agility, not to mention his “tenacity” as a defender, an attribute affirmed by the likes of Bob Cousy and Jerry West.
Said to be reserved emotionally off the court, he stressed for his four daughters to hit the books every school night and to make it to church every Sunday morning.
These days, his bright smile, welcoming nature and love for Oneida Lake are some of the things remembered fondly by niece Andrea Van Patten, while his sister-in-law Sharon Bishop thinks back to his “even-tempered” approach and his loyalty to those around him.
Stories from Costello’s life also include his 1965-66 coaching stint for the county champion East Syracuse Minoa boys basketball team during a season away from the NBA, his payment for a Milwaukee ball boy’s first year of medical school, and his summertime allegiance to a Bishop Ludden basketball camp for adolescents.
“He was just a humble man, so you would never think he was as acclaimed as he was,” said Minoa Mayor Bill Brazill, one of many to deliver a eulogy at Costello’s funeral.
Before his passing, the village recognized the date of July 17, 1999 as Larry Costello Day and had commemorative signs put up at Minoa’s entrances to celebrate him.
In 2002, his daughters and his wife, Barbara, made sure to plant a tree and place a stone in the triangular park on North Main Street in his memory.
As a way to encompass his entire career in basketball while acknowledging his eligibility criteria-wise in the categories of both player and coach, Larry Costello will enter the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts this September as a “contributor” to the game he loved.
