In Memoriam: HoopsHD remembers George Bisacca

It is not always fun being ranked #1 in the nation: just look at Auburn last night as they held on for dear life to beat Missouri by a single point. Another to-ranked team that was not so lucky was the 1968 Niagara Purple Eagles, who were upset by Fairfield more than a half-century ago. The architect of that win was George Bisacca, who in his 10th and final season as head coach of the Stags defeated Niagara and its future Hall-of-Famer Calvin Murphy 88-85 before a sell-out crowd at the New Haven Arena on January 26, 1968. Coach Bisacca passed away in 2018 but HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to chat with him a few years ago and is proud to present this never-before-published interview. Today is the 54th anniversary of that legendary upset so we take this time to honor Coach Bisacca’s life/legacy.

You played basketball at Georgetown: how good a player were you back in the day? I was not a star but had a great 2-hand set shot and was a decent player.

After college you became an attorney: what kind of law did you practice, and how did you decide to get into coaching? I played a little semi-pro ball with my old high school team while waiting to take the bar exam. The coach asked me if I would take care of the JV team, and when we became more successful than the varsity he asked me to take over the varsity.

You became coach at Fairfield in 1958: why did you take the job? Fairfield did not even open until 1947. I loved the game and had some success, which whet my appetite. Within a few years we were playing some of the best teams in the country like Houston/St. Bonaventure.

What are your memories of the 1960 D-2 tourney (a 1-PT loss to American)? Not much. The 1 loss that stands out in my mind was to CW Post after my alma mater refused to play us. Their coach was George Kaftan, who was a friend of mine. Our most notable win was Bob Cousy’s 1st game at BC after he brought in 5 high school All-Americans.

In 1964 the program made the leap from D-2 to D-1: what was the biggest difference between the 2 levels? We actually had a better record at the D-1 level! We were an “Independent” so we were used to playing against the top teams. I figured that as long as we were playing some good teams then we might as well play a full schedule of them. We snuck up on a lot of people and often played the spoiler: I would show up to recruit and the high school coach would say, “There is a guy here from Fairchild”!

In January of 1968 you had a 3-PT win over Niagara: how were you able to pull off the win, and could you tell at the time that Murphy was going to become a superstar? I tried to recruit Calvin because he was from the next town over in Norwalk: inch for inch he was 1 of the best of all-time. They had more than Calvin (such as All-American Manny Leaks): we came up with a couple of intricate defenses for Calvin and held him to 26 PTS…which was actually good because he was averaging 44 PPG at the time! In my final game we had a 1-PT 2-OT loss to a St. Bonaventure team led by future Hall-of-Famer Bob Lanier.

In addition to coaching you also served as athletic director: how were you able to balance the 2 jobs? I was a lousy athletic director because I was only interested in the basketball team: I felt bad for all the other coaches because I never gave them a big enough piece of the budget! I did not enjoy it but they asked me to do it for a few years. I coached in Italy for a while as well.

You later worked as legal counsel for the NIT: what kind of legal issues did the organization face? Fighting the NCAA all the time! They were always trying to put us out of business by not allowing teams that turned them down to play for us: it was a clear antitrust violation on its face. We sued the NCAA and I was a principal witness. We hired Jeff Kessler (a top-notch sports lawyer) to represent the NIT. The presidents of the 5 New York City schools that own the NIT got an offer of $56 million from the NCAA, so they took it.

When people look back on your career, how do you want to be remembered the most? My plaque in the school’s Hall of Fame calls me “The father of Fairfield basketball” because I helped get the program off the ground. I did the best I could and loved the kids who played for me. You know you are old when the players who show up at the reunion are in their 60s/70s! They are great personal friends who still call me on my birthday. Once you coach your players they never call you by your 1st name, which is a nice feeling.