By Erin Casey
As the Assumption community mourns the loss of Andy Laska HD’90, longtime Men’s Basketball coach, athletic director, and namesake of the institution’s gymnasium, his former players, friends, teammates, and colleagues remember a person whose impact on many lives will live on.
“He was as near a perfect human being as I’ve known in my life,” said Boston Celtics legend Bob Cousy, Laska’s teammate on the 1947 Holy Cross NCAA basketball championship team and close friend of 72 years. “He had very few, if any, flaws that I was aware of over the years. He was just a nice man, reliable, he always had your back when you needed that. I don’t know if I can say that about anyone else of my acquaintance.”
Laska, who passed away on February 2, was head Men’s Basketball coach at Assumption from 1951–67, compiling a 224-92 record. During his 15 years as coach, he steered Assumption toward becoming one of the top basketball programs in New England. He won an NCAA Regional Championship, took his team to 10 NCAA tournaments, and was named New England Coach of the Year twice – no surprise to those who played under his direction.
Don Lemenager ’56 was a member of Laska’s first team at Assumption. “That was the start of a friendship that grew and strengthened over the next 67 years,” said Lemenager, who visited Laska almost every weekday in recent years. “Not only was Andy my basketball coach, but a mentor who prepared me for life and success. His greatest character trait was loyalty. I never heard him say a bad word about anyone, and conversely everyone liked Andy and admired his success. By closely observing Andy’s everyday activities, I learned the importance of loyalty in my own life.”
Tom O’Connor ’68 played for Laska and then, with Laska’s ongoing support and encouragement, went on to have his own successful career in coaching and athletic administration. Laska became O’Connor’s mentor and close friend. “I will always be grateful for the major role he played in my life,” O’Connor said. “It went well beyond his coaching. He instilled in me, and in other student athletes, the ‘Assumption Way.’ He taught us to be competitive, but also taught us discipline both on and off the basketball court and instilled important life values for the future. I always felt that he truly cared about my well-being, and at the same time he taught me to respect others, by example more than with words.”
Ted Paulauskas ’67 also admired the example Laska set for those who knew him and tried to emulate him. Paulauskas was captain of the last Assumption team Laska coached before retiring, and they remained friends for more than 50 years. “I admired the manner in which he handled the various aspects of his life,” Paulauskas said. “He had a lot of success as a young man, but he always seemed to be able to separate work from his personal life and spend time with his family. He never seemed to lose perspective of his priorities.” Some of those priorities, Paulauskas said, were finding the good qualities in others and helping to enhance them, and developing healthy relationships, practices Paulauskas also tried to incorporate in his own career as a coach and athletics administrator.
Laska served as Assumption’s director of athletics from 1956 until his retirement in 1986. During his tenure he was instrumental in adding various varsity sports to the institution’s athletic program, oversaw the transition to an NCAA Division II program, and was a “founding father” of the Northeast-10 Conference. In 1967 he was the first non-alumnus inducted into the Assumption Athletics Hall of Fame. He also coached golf at Assumption from 1969–86, mentoring top Massachusetts’s amateur golfer Frank Vana, Jr. ’86, P’13.
Through it all, according to Dee Rowe, Laska’s longtime friend, mentee, and cohost of a basketball camp with him at Worcester Academy and then Assumption for many years, Laska remained humble.
“Despite all the honors he received along the way, he never changed,” Rowe said. “He was always about others, about making life better for other people. There will only ever be one Andy Laska. And I think anybody who has ever been touched by his life would say the same thing.”
Laska and his late wife, Ruth, had five children: Michael AP’66, Donna, former Director of Alumni Relations Diane Laska-Nixon ’76, P’10, Kim ’81, and Andrew, and many grandchildren, including Jessie Nixon Weiss ’10.
