Leo Allamanno, one of the most successful high school basketball coaches in California history during his nearly three decades of dominance at Fremont High in Oakland, has died. He was 99.
Allamanno’s death Monday from injuries suffered in a recent fall came just eight days before his 100th birthday.
“Rest In Peace Coach Leo Allmanno. The Fremont community mourns your loss today. Incredible life you lived, giving over 30 years … Thank you for your dedication to thousands of students,” Fremont High said in a Twitter post Monday night announcing his death.
Rest In Peace Coach Leo Allamanno. The Fremont community mourns your loss today. Incredible life you lived, giving over 30 years at @FrickUnited and at Fremont. Thank you for your dedication to thousands of students. Coach lived 99 years, 8 days away from turning 100.
pic.twitter.com/3cjjOOint5
— Fremont High School (@FremontTigers) March 2, 2021
Allamanno went from knowing little about basketball when he took over Fremont’s varsity team in 1954 to being known for churning out championship teams during his 29 years there. His Tigers won 10 Oakland Athletic League championships, four Tournament of Champions titles and his 1977 team, led by future Golden State Warriors first-round pick Lester Conner, went 25-1 and was the state’s top-ranked team.
As a testament to the talent on Allamanno’s teams, Conner served as Fremont’s sixth man until his senior season.
In all, Allamanno’s teams went 449-191 from 1954-83 as they helped him become a two-time state coach of the year, a California Coaches Hall of Fame inductee in 1988 and earn him a spot in the pantheon of all-time great Oakland high school basketball coaches along with George Powles, Paul Harless and Dwight Nathaniel of McClymonds and Bishop O’Dowd’s Mike Phelps.
Recognizing Fremont’s dominance, Cal-Hi Sports named Allamanno its Coach of the Decade for the 1970s.
In addition to his basketball teams, Allamanno also coached Fremont’s baseball team to five OAL titles and its tennis team to a league title.
Known as a demanding, but fair and honest coach who stressed fundamentals and accountability. His teams spent hours doing meticulous drills and mastering the simple art of dribbling the ball. Allamanno’s annual message to his teams was always the same.
“I’d sit the players down in the bleachers and say, ‘The toughest thing you need to do is listen to this old man and figure out what I’m talking about,’ ” Allamanno said in “Home Field Advantage,” Paul Brekke-Miesner’s book about Oakland’s rich sports history. “Shot selection was very important to me. I told the players you don’t take a shot you can’t make every other time.”
The straight-shooting Allamanno was beloved by his former players. In fact, members of his 1960 championship baseball team have for decades held an annual lunch with Allamanno. Beginning after their graduation, the coach also had taken his 1965 title-winning basketball team out to lunch at the same Oakland restaurant every five years. At the restaurant, Allemanno would have each player write down his phone number, address and email on a notepad. About a week later, players received a letter with a full contact list for each one of his teammates.
“It was his way of keeping us together,” said Ed Tavis, an All-OAL player in ’65. “He kept us together as long as he was alive. I’m still real close to the guys from that team that are still alive.”
It was that kind of understated gesture that endeared Allamanno to everyone he knew.
“Every once in a while you run across a guy who had great success who’s just a hell of a nice guy. Leo was one of those really great guys,” said Brekke-Miesner, the Oakland sports historian and author who became one of Allamanno’s many friends. “His players always remembered him and were always coming to see him. Everybody really loved him.”
Allamanno made sure that most of his old players kept in touch by encouraging them all to hold reunions.
Many of his ex-players were on hand at Fremont High on Valentine’s Day three years ago to show their love and appreciation for Allamanno when the school renamed its old basketball court in his honor. The school also announced the then-96-year-old Allamanno would continue to be honored at its new gymnasium.
Fremont’s beautiful new gym was completed months ago but has yet to host any games. It’s currently being used as a COVID-19 vaccination site. When the games do resume at Fremont, Allamanno’s name will forever be front and center on the court.
Not that Allamanno was ever comfortable with being recognized in that way. Tavis and his ’65 teammates Don Griffin and Arnold Sloan spent more than a year pushing the process to have the court named for Allamanno. When they all went to his house to deliver the good news to Allamanno, they were met with hesitation.
“He told us, ‘Oh, I’m not deserving of that,’ ” said Tavis, who went on to coach basketball at Oakland’s Head-Royce for eight years, using all the fundamentals, drills and plays Allamanno taught him in high school.
Griffin, one of the stars on Fremont’s first TOC-winning team in ’65, was one of the presenters at the gym that night three years ago. Griffin, just the third Black player in history to play basketball at Stanford and a member of Stanford’s athletic hall of fame, was one of Allamanno’s 70 former players to earn an athletic scholarship.
Bob Howard, another of the players on Allamanno’s early teams, also went on to have a gymnasium named in his honor after a successful career as an East Bay basketball coach. Howard retired in 2010 after spending 42 years as a boys basketball coach, teacher and athletic director at St. Elizabeth High.
Howard lived down the street from Allamanno in Alameda and had lunch with Leo and his wife once a month. When he looks back at Allmanno’s life, he can’t help but be in awe.
“He helped a lot of people,” said Howard, who got to coach against Allamanno a few times, but never could beat him.
Howard was also the second baseman on Fremont’s 1960 baseball team, playing alongside Tigers first baseman Ron Benavides, who would go on to become one of the Bay Area’s most successful basketball coaches while at Mt. Eden for decades.
Both Howard and Benavides each took their basketball teams to the state championship, with Howard’s Mustangs winning the 1996 state title.
Dave Johns, one of the the players on Allamanno’s 1955 team, also went on to coach for decades in the East Bay at Encinal and San Leandro. Johns also shared a distinction with his mentor — he coached a future NBA first-round draft pick. Isaiah Rider, the star of Johns’ teams at Encinal, was the No. 5 overall pick by the Timberwolves in 1993.
A 1939 Richmond High graduate, coaching high school basketball was never Allamanno’s plan after he earned his teaching credential from Cal while also serving with Army Ordinance on the ship USS Oakland during World War II. Allamanno was a junior high physical education in Oakland when Fremont’s varsity basketball job opened up.
In those days, the league commissioner told schools which coaches it would hire. So Allamanno, who played baseball but hadn’t much basketball knowledge, was surprised to be appointed as the Tigers’ head coach. He immediately began visiting with Bill Rockwell, the outgoing coach.
“I went over to Rockwell’s home and talked basketball. I also took a summer course in basketball at Cal,” Allamanno said in “Home Field Advantage,” Brekke-Miesner’s book about Oakland’s rich sports history.
It didn’t take long for Allamanno to catch on, though. After finishing second in the OAL in his first season, Allamanno and the Tigers went on to pile up OAL and TOC titles. Before state basketball championships began in 1981, the TOC was the crown jewel of titles as it determined the best team in the Bay Area.
Allamanno called Fremont’s first TOC title in 1965 his greatest thrill as a coach. Still, many longtime East Bay basketball followers will point to Fremont’s 1963 victory over rival McClymonds as one of the most memorable games in Oakland history.
McClymonds hadn’t lost an OAL basketball game in six years and Harless’ Warriors were 126-4 overall during the most dominant stretch of boys basketball in state history, one that featured four unbeaten seasons.
Football was also a big part of Allamanno’s life as he served as the Raiders’ official clock operator for their home games at Frank Youell Field and the Coliseum until they left for Los Angeles in 1982.
After his coaching and teaching career ended in 1983, Allamanno retired to the home in Alameda.
“It’s a shock. Even though he was 99, it was a shock,” Tavis said. “We all just assumed he was gonna be 100.”
He is survived by his wife, Pearl, and two sons, Carl and Tom. Some type of memorial for Allamanno is expected to take place at a later date, Brekke-Miesner said.
Howard had just finished sending the last of his notes to a long list of former Fremont athletes, giving them Allamanno’s address and reminding them to send their old coach a birthday wish for his 100th.
“I had to send them another note, asking them to instead send their condolences to his wife,” Howard said.
