The plaque arrived in a box at Martina Martincich’s office last summer, during the retired school administrator’s term as interim athletic director for the Roslyn School District. It recognized Joe Lettera, the man who coached the Bulldogs varsity boys’ basketball team to 405 wins across four decades, for his induction this year to the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame.
The attached letter was from the now 85-year-old Lettera himself, requesting the district hang the plaque in the halls of Roslyn High School, where he spent the bulk of his coaching career, next to a memorial for his old friend Walter “Renny” Witzig, for whom the district now awards an annual scholarship.
Martincich – and Roslyn – obliged.
“Joe Lettera was a legend. I was a little afraid of him because here was this powerful man who got so much out of kids, who held them to such high standards and reached those standards,” Martincich said Friday during a Board of Education ceremony honoring the coach.
“You kind of have people in your life who you measure yourselves by their example,” she added. “You say to yourself, what would Joe have done? How would Joe have handled this?”
Lettera was inducted to the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame in March. He coached both football and basketball at Roslyn High School over a 30-year period from 1958-89, when he retired as the district’s athletic director.
Lettera’s basketball teams had 28 seasons with winning records and won seven division titles and two Nassau County titles in an era that Martincich said predated Long Island and New York state championships.
Lettera was also named Nassau County’s 1973 Coach of the Year, was a two-time Long Island Basketball Officials’ sportsmanship award winner and was twice named president of the Nassau County Basketball Coaches Association.
“Everything I have today is because of the opportunities I had at the Roslyn public schools,” an emotional Lettera said Thursday.
School officials said the plaque would be placed next to a copy of a eulogy Lettera delivered for Witzig, a fellow coach and teacher who died suddenly in 1975.
“Joe, we thank you for who you were, and for who you will always be to this district and this school,” Martincich said. “It’s a great night to celebrate you.”
Former students, teachers Lettera hired at Roslyn and administrators shared their memories of the former coach during Thursday’s ceremony.
Steve D’Agostino, a graduate of Roslyn High School’s class of 1972, read an article he wrote for local newspapers near his residence in North Carolina about how Lettera named him an assistant football coach after he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis prior to the start of his senior season.
Former Roslyn High School physical education teacher Terri Hoffman-Yagoda said Lettera became her mentor during her time with the district.
Superintendent of Schools Dan Brenner said he remembered playing against Lettera’s Roslyn teams when he was a student at Paul D. Schrieber High School in Port Washington in the late 1970s.
He said it was “one of the delights of being superintendent of the Roslyn School District” to honor Lettera, whose teams, Brenner acknowledged, were often more talented.
“I would just say for me, this has come full circle,” Brenner said. “…From my perspective, I honored you back then and I certainly honor you today.”
Clifford Saffron, the board of education’s vice president, said Lettera “should take tremendous pride in what you accomplished at Roslyn High School, the lives you touched.”
“I am so honored to be standing here in your presence and to be able to look at you and say thank you for all you have done for our community,” he said.
