Local legend

The accounts of anybody that has played for, been taught by, or worked with Larry Giangrosso make it obvious that his most recent accolade was not brought about simply due to outstanding baseball acumen.

Giangrosso, who served as the head baseball coach at Central Alabama Community College from 1990-99, will be inducted into the National Junior College Athletic Association Baseball Hall of Fame on May 25. 

The former Berry High School educator and coach and current Spain Park High School principal said the honor was humbling and something he never expected.

“You never set out on your journey to get any of that, an award or anything,” Giangrosso said. “That was a special time.”

Giangrosso started the program from scratch at Central Alabama in Alexander City and served as the head coach at UAB from 1999-2006.

“I have to thank my wife and my family first,” Giangrosso said. “That’s a leap of faith to move to a small town where you don’t know anybody. It’s easy for the coach because I’m always going to be in the mix, in the community. But your family, my children Pete and Meredith, and my wife Karen, they were in a place they didn’t know anybody.”

Happy at Berry

Giangrosso spent nearly 15 years teaching English and coaching football, basketball and baseball at Berry High School before moving to Alexander City. He worked alongside legendary coach Bob Finley as the football program’s defensive coordinator and was in no hurry to escape from under his wing.

“The program was going pretty well, and I thought that’s where I would be,” Giangrosso said. “I loved every minute of it there.”

One of his pupils during that time at Berry would end up alongside him for years to come. Lee Hall, the current head baseball coach at Homewood High School, played football and baseball for Giangrosso. 

Hall has plenty of stories to tell about his time as a student, player and assistant coach.

“He changed my life,” Hall said.

Hall would end up spending all nine years at Central Alabama with Giangrosso and three additional years with him at UAB. 

“I started out as his ninth-grade English teacher and coach and all the sudden we’re working to build a program at a school that had never had baseball,” Giangrosso said.

Starting from nothing

There was always a desire to be a college baseball head coach some day, and Central Alabama offered Giangrosso that chance. 

“The opportunity of the junior college in Alexander City was very appealing to me, because you get to start a program,” Giangrosso said. 

Giangrosso said school president Jim Cornell “drove circles” around the campus until a desirable spot was found for a baseball field.

“They didn’t even own a baseball when we got there,” Giangrosso said.

That allowed Giangrosso to build the program exactly how he wanted, including the design of the playing field. He preferred a style of play centered on pitching, defense and base running. So the field was designed to take full advantage of that.

“The field was 335 [feet] down the lines, 385 in the alleys and 400 dead away,” Giangrosso said. “The wind blew in. We had 65 feet of foul space. There’s a lot of places you could get outs.”

Most junior college baseball fields weren’t that expansive and most teams certainly did not have a wealth of experience playing against the type of team Giangrosso built at Central Alabama.

“We never led the conference in home runs, but we always led it in doubles, triples and stolen bases. It was an exciting time,” he said.

Having the Russell Corporation headquartered in Alexander City also proved to be quite a boon for the program, as the team often got the opportunity to test out new apparel items and had a great relationship with the sports equipment manufacturer.

“Alexander City was a very unique place and they welcomed us and they wanted us to have a good baseball program and they wanted to support us,” Giangrosso said.

The days of recruiting prospective players by only being able to show them hand-drawn plans of a soon-to-be baseball field were a distant memory after just a few years.

Under his guidance, Central Alabama won three division titles and one conference championship. From 1993-99, Giangrosso also served as the Director of Athletics at Central Alabama.

“It’s not really my award,” Giangrosso said of the hall of fame honor. “It’s our award. It’s Central Alabama’s. It’s all those players. Your name is on it, but you look at it and you can’t take credit for it.”

Treating people right

Hall certainly has applied what he learned alongside Giangrosso in terms of style of play. His team at Homewood pitches well and plays solid defense. Hall’s son, Josh Hall, is set to soon become the most prolific base-stealer in the history of high school baseball. 

Hall also credited Giangrosso for giving his assistant coaches a great deal of responsibility. But Hall learned more than baseball from Coach “Gino.” He learned the value of respecting and valuing all those surrounding his program.

“Not only the baseball players but the administrators, the secretary, the janitorial staff, everybody that’s involved. For you to be successful, you better treat everyone involved well,” Hall said.

Hall makes it clear that it was more Giangrosso’s ability to lead a team to victory that led him to the NJCAA Baseball Hall of Fame.

Hall said, “Humble, a man that you want to work for, and that you’d go to war with, a man that you’d jump on a grenade for. He is phenomenal man to work for.”