Johnny Altobello
Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame
Baseball/Basketball Coach, 1943-81
St. Aloysius HS/De La Salle HS
Inducted: 1982
Johnny Altobello was a legendary New Orleans coach in basketball, baseball, football, and golf for St. Aloysius (now Brother Martin) and De La Salle high schools as well as with American Legion teams. His greatest accomplishments came in basketball and baseball as he won 12 high school state championships in those sports. He recorded six city championships and four state championships in basketball for St Aloysius (in six years); three city titles and four state titles in baseball for De La Salle; and four state championships, 16 district championships, 18 tournament titles in basketball for the Cavaliers.
A native of Cincinnati, Altobello moved to New Orleans as a child. After graduating from Warren Easton, he attended Loyola University from 1939-42, playing on the school's basketball team. After serving in the Navy, he returned to New Orleans and embarked on a storied 38-year high school coaching career, first at St. Aloysius (1946-52) and then at De La Salle.
He is one of the winningest basketball coaches in Louisiana sports history with a record of 589-92, an .865 winning percentage.
His 1947 basketball team at St. Aloysius, which included future Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Famer Nick Revon, Lou Bravo and Eddie Davis, was selected by The Times-Picayune in 2003 as one of the top prep teams of all time.
At De La Salle from 1953 to 1970, Altobello had tremendous success. Three of his teams (1948-49, 1950-51, 1956-57) went undefeated. One of his star players at De La Salle was Johnny Arthurs, also a Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Famer, who went on to become a leading scorer for Tulane and play briefly for the NBA Milwaukee Bucks. In 1995, De La Salle renamed its gymnasium the Johnny J. Altobello Sports Complex.
His 1959 Cavaliers baseball team won the state prep championship, while the De La Salle-based Perfecto Foods American Legion team captured the state title and advanced to the national regionals. The prep team, which posted a 19-2-1 record, was picked by the Times-Picayune in 2003 as a Top 10 all-time baseball team from the New Orleans area. Altobello's baseball teams compiled an all-time record of 629-202, for a remarkable .759 winning percentage.
Arthurs, who also played baseball for Altobello, said, “In basketball, Mr. Altobello’s approach was straightforward, ‘Run my offense and hustle on defense.’ He was a motivator. In baseball, he was more of a tactician. He was a thinker on the field, with more strategy required. He was a great teacher of the game.”
He has been inducted into the Louisiana High School Coaches Hall of Fame, the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame, the Italian-American Hall of Fame and the Louisiana Sports Writers Hall of Fame.
Altobello retired from coaching in 1970. He continued on the school’s faculty until 1974 after which he became athletic director, a role he kept until 1985. He died June 30, 2009 at 89 years old.
Source: New Orleans Times-Picayune, CrescentCitySports.com
