For Olean native Francis Tommasino, the wait was worth it.
Six days ago, Christopher Newport University’s Senior Director of Athletic Communications got to broadcast a national championship men’s basketball game.
The Captains, 30-3, defeated Ohio’s Mount Union University, 74-72, on a buzzer-beating layup, last Saturday at Fort Wayne, Indiana’s Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, to win the Division III title.
For Tommasino, 58, who started his media career at Olean High School, it was the crowning achievement in his 27 years at the 5,000-student state school in Newport News, Va.
Of course, he had over four decades of preparation.
Besides serving as an intern in the Times Herald’s sports department during his scholastic years, though he never played sports at the school, he earned a place on the OHS Athletic Wall of Fame for his contributions as a public address announcer at games and tireless work as a statistician. In addition, he hosted Husky Half, a Saturday morning half-hour show on WHDL produced entirely by students.
BUT THE Southern Tier became aware of him in 1988 when, less than two years after graduating from St. Bonaventure with a degree in Mass Communications, he replaced the legendary Don McLean, who quit at midseason after a spat with station management, as voice of the Bonnies.
After seven seasons in that role, he and wife Anne, an anesthetist, moved to Virginia and, following a year in radio, Tommasino was hired by Christopher Newport as sports information director. The bonus for the school was that it was also getting an experienced radio play-by-play man who immediately brokered a deal to broadcast men’s hoops. And, when CNU added football, he did those game’s too … every one of the 230 it’s ever played.
But it’s basketball where his longevity is apparent, approaching 700 games, though none quite like last week.
“IT’S FUNNY,” Tommasino said, “we’ve had a lot of good teams here but this is the last one of those that I expected to win a national championship.
“During the season, (John Krikorian, Div. III Coach of the Year) would complain to me that the players just wouldn’t listen to him. If he’d have had this team 10 years ago, I can’t imagine what would have happened.
“But John has mellowed and he figured out that his best approach was to let them be themselves and just try to give them some guidance … and it worked.”
The Captains finished on a 15-game win streak but tellingly went 9-2 in games decided by six points or fewer and got a major scare in the opening round of the NCAAs, edging Farmingdale St., 61-60. Four of CNU’s six postseason wins were by a combined 12 points.
“It was one of those seasons,” Tommasino said, “where everything seemed to go right, including the final. We went from 14 down in the first half to winning as time expired.”
That game was televised nationally on CBSSN and his call was available on the Christopher Newport athletics website.
And when it was over, Tommasino even got to climb the ladder and do a couple of snips on the net.
However, Christopher Newport’s basketball season isn’t quite over.
Its women’s basketball team, now 31-0, won its semifinal simultaneous with the men’s victory in the title game. However, because this is the 50th anniversary of Title IX, this year’s NCAA women’s championships for all three divisions — I, II, III — will be held next Saturday in Dallas.
Thus, the Captains will face Transylvania for the title at noon.
“Connecticut has had both its men’s and women’s teams win Div. I titles the same year, twice (2004, ‘14),” Tommasino said. “It’s never been done on the Div. III level, the closest being when Washington University got both teams to the finals in 2008, but the men won and the women lost.
“This will be another chance for CNU to make history.”
(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
