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D'Antoni to be honored for lifetime legacy
CHARLESTON -- Lewis D'Antoni's lifetime legacy of teaching, coaching and mentoring youth is being honored by The Education Alliance of Charleston.
D'Antoni's sons, Mike and Dan, are former Marshall University basketball stars and the ex-NBA head coach and assistant coach of the New York Knicks respectively. D'Antoni and his late wife Betty Jo's children also include a daughter, Kathy, and a son, Mark.
The son of an Italian immigrant, who will be 99 in December, taught and coached at Pineville (1937-41) and Mullens (1942-59) high schools in West Virginia and Chesapeake (1971-82) in Ohio. He also started a six-man football team at Pineville in 1938 and coached the Mullens 11-man teams from 1946 to 1950.
He helped thousands of West Virginia school children develop the values of humility and hard work.
Because of the D'Antoni family's success story The Education Alliance will honor that tradition during its 2012 Annual Celebration on Wednesday, Nov. 14, at the Marriott Town Center. A reception begins at 5:30 p.m. Dinner follows at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets are available by calling The Education Alliance, 866-314-KIDS.
"Through his years serving as a teacher, coach and school administrator, Lewis D'Antoni set an exemplary standard for his family and his community," said Patricia S. Kusimo, president and CEO of The Education Alliance, West Virginia's leading statewide, nonprofit research and K-12 public education fund, in a news release.
"The people of West Virginia are most grateful for Coach D'Antoni and his family demonstrating the importance of education," she said.
Kusimo noted in the release that Kathy D'Antoni has devoted her life to education in West Virginia through her service in higher education and most recently as an assistant state superintendent of schools. Mark D'Antoni became a successful attorney in one of the state's best-known law firms, she said.
Jim Thomas, chair of the board of directors of The Education Alliance, said Lewis D'Antoni and his family are a uniquely American success story.
"They represent how public education is the pathway to a better life, even from the humblest of beginnings," Thomas said in the release.
