RIP Frank Rienzo

[DanMcQ]

One of a kind and one of the visionaries that created the Big East.

[FrazierFanatic]

Sad news. He was a big part of the Hoya family.

[EasyEd]

A gentleman.

[Nevada Hoya]

Sorry to hear his passing. I talked to him on a couple of occasions. He came to Georgetown three years after I graduated. Before he was track coach at Georgetown, he was track coach at Molloy on Long Island, a Marist Brothers' School, like my HS St. Mary's on Long Island (where Jessie Govan started). I talked to him about one of the 800m runners on the Hoyas with a similar last name, de Rienzo. Most importantly,he let me into a closed bball team practice at the old convention center in Las Vegas. I had my infant son in my arms and pleaded with him saying that it had been 10 years since I had seen the Hoyas. After talking to Big John, he let us in for a few minutes.
May he rest in peace.

[HoyaChris]

He was so much of what we became.

May he rest in eternal peace.

Suddenly I feel very old.

[SSHoya]

AD Rienzo was very supportive when we first started the GU Pep Band for Hoya basketball games while some others, not so much. RIP.

[njhoya78]

Were it not for the efforts of Frank Rienzo, with the other visionaries who were responsible for the formation of the Big East Conference, we would all be doing something else with our leisure time instead of coming to this site. Hoya basketball would still be played on campus against the likes of Fordham, Holy Cross, Stonehill and St. Francis...in front of many empty bleacher seats.

The impact that Hoya basketball had on the university itself and in the outside world would have been neglible. Those ubiquitous Starter jackets, in navy blue with large gray lettering trimmed in white, would never have appeared.

Alonzo, Dikembe, Iverson...likely never wind up at Georgetown.

His impact at Georgetown can not be easily summarized. And we will go a long time before we find anyone remotely close.

Requiescat in pace, Francis. Well done.

[Elvado]

A giant in the world of college athletics and one of Georgetown’s true pillars.

Godspeed sir.

[DanMcQ]

www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1999/01/30/gu-senior-ad-rienzo-to-retire-on-monday/5e77a7f6-e42f-4f31-aeba-43e1d3c10a21/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f8cd3c4a8292

www.thehoya.com/rienzos-impact-endures/

[SirSaxa]

Nov 4, 2018 7:34:46 GMT -5 SirSaxa said:

From the W. Post article Dan linked:

"He's a special man," said former Georgetown coach John Thompson, who resigned Jan. 8 after 27 years. "Whatever I accomplished at Georgetown . . . I would not have been able to do it without him and particularly the way he stood up with me during the hard times. He's a soldier."

In 1969, Rienzo came to Georgetown as a track coach. Three years later, he was asked to be acting athletic director, a job he thought he would do for six to eight weeks. "Now it's 27 years later that I have been doing it," Rienzo said. "It wasn't ever my intention to be an administrator or an athletic director. . . . I have had an opportunity to see intercollegiate activities change over that time."


From the Hoya article

Five years before Ewing and Thompson cut down the championship nets in Seattle – in some ways a product of Rienzo’s expansion of the athletics department on the Hilltop, Rienzo, David Gavitt of Providence, John Kaiser of St. John’s and Jake Crouthamel of Syracuse met to discuss the formation of a new basketball conference. The four concluded that a new conference was needed among their smaller, independent and mostly Catholic schools because NCAA scheduling rules for independent teams meant playing inferior opponents in basketball, the lifeblood of these non-football schools. The four men took a bold step forward and, with Villanova, Seton Hall and Boston College, founded the Big East conference.

That high level of competition made the Big East one of the premier basketball conferences in the country, attracting top-caliber players and coaches and laying the foundation for the current success of the conference in developing excellent basketball programs.

[s4hoyas]

God Bless Frank...his legacy of contributions will forever be interwoven into the fabric of Georgetown Athletics, especially the nationally acclaimed basketball program...a true "Gentleman of Georgetown," and a very fine man...he will be greatly missed...

[MassHoya]

Condolences to the family. Frank Rienzo was the exemplar of integrity for Georgetown athletics. A true Son of Georgetown.

[seaweed]

Great man, great Hoya. Condolences to his family

[RusskyHoya]

Lee Reed, Director of Intercollegiate Athletics
Nov 4, 2018, 09:02



It is with profound sadness that I convey the news of the passing of former Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Francis X. Rienzo on Saturday, November 3, 2018. On behalf of the Department of Athletics, we ask that you all keep Frank and his family in your prayers.

Frank Rienzo represents all that is good about Georgetown University and our Department of Athletics. Much of what we are able to achieve today is because of the decisions that Frank made a generation ago. In addition to being a visionary, Frank was a shrewd businessman, coach, a wonderful husband to his wife Joan and loving father and grandfather.

In the fall of 1969, Georgetown hired a 36-year-old high school teacher from Queens in New York City, who just happened to be the most successful track & field coach in the New York metropolitan region over the previous decade. His job was to resurrect the Hoya track and field program, which had fallen on hard times.

Thirty years later (serving only five as coach), Frank retired from Georgetown as Senior Director of Athletics, having overseen the greatest expansion of athletics and the most successful era in the annals of Georgetown sports to date.

When Frank took the reins of the Athletic Department in the spring of 1972, he faced a myriad of challenges that he navigated with a critical acumen that would define his tenure. His leadership guided the Department, and thanks to his vision, the Athletics Department expanded and flourished.

Frank and coaching legend John Thompson Jr. were the perfect pairing of coach and administrator in one of the most successful eras in the history of college basketball. Frank's many accomplishments included spearheading the planning and construction of Yates Field House, the campus recreational facility competed in 1979; and overseeing the addition of 11 women's teams that were given varsity sports status by the end of the 1970s.

By 1995, the number of Georgetown varsity sports had grown from 11 to 26, all led by full-time coaches. Finally, Frank played a pivotal role in the creation and development of the BIG EAST Conference, whose instant success and competitive profile brought Georgetown Athletics into the national spotlight.

In 1999, Frank was quoted as saying that when he assumed his position as Athletics Director his goal was "to build an athletics program as excellent as the academic programs at Georgetown." I think we would all agree that he achieved that goal and so much more.

Following his retirement in 1999, Frank was named Director of Athletics Emeritus. Subsequently, funding for an endowed chair for the director position in his name was generously given by the family of James Higgins (B'70).

Frank Rienzo was a giant and will truly be missed.



Lee Reed
Director of Intercollegiate Athletics

[Elvado]

Great story about Mr Rienzo. During the ‘83 BET we were playing Cuse and some of us on the baseline court seats were laying into Andre Hawkins about the Hartford sex assault allegations from the year before. Mr Rienzo walked over to us and said “you’re better than that, you’re from Georgetown.”

Simple words but huge message.

Rest In Peace.

[iowa80]

Many happy memories of the Cap Center with AD Rienzo present and patrolling its environs. RIP.

[sleepyjackson21]

He was a good man. RIP.

[DanMcQ]

Mod Request: let’s keep posts here on topic please. Thanks for your expected cooperation.

I’ve moved several off board.

guhoyas.com/galleries/?gallery=1669

[RG]

Truly a wonderful man. As a freshman in 1969, I was one of just four or five runners who made up the “track team” when the program was in serious trouble. We were all former high school runners but hardly great, yet Frank treated us with so much respect and dignity. Though I switched to soccer full time after my freshman year, Frank stayed in touch with me until I graduated, He had a wonderful, dry sense of humor, and while he worked us hard, underneath was a caring and compassionate man. RIP.

[DanMcQ]