{"id":18663,"date":"2026-04-01T12:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T16:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/?p=18663"},"modified":"2026-04-03T10:25:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T14:25:24","slug":"legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/issues\/new-reads\/legend\/","title":{"rendered":"Legend"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Legend<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

In January, Andy Yosinoff \u201970, women\u2019s basketball coach at Emmanuel College in Boston, became the seventh-winningest coach in women\u2019s basketball history, surpassing Notre Dame Hall of Famer Muffet McGraw. Yosinoff loves to win. But his real legacy goes beyond the on-court victories.<\/p>\n\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n

By Bob Herzog<\/em>
Photos by Seth Jacobson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snow is piled high in the parking lot and on sidewalks and lawns as students huddle against the chill of a harsh New England winter. Some are heading to class, some to the library, and some to the basketball court, which is part of a sparkling indoor sports complex at a tiny college in downtown Boston, about a mile from Fenway Park.
 
Inside, a proud Yankees fan brings the heat in the form of boundless energy, perpetual motion, and passion\u2014for basketball, for his players, and for his coaches. On a court that, since 2019, has featured his name, Emmanuel College\u2019s women\u2019s basketball coach Andy Yosinoff \u201970, in his 49th season on the job, blows the whistle signaling the end of practice. Turns out, though, this day\u2019s festivities are just beginning.

Coaches and players scurry off the court, conspiratorial whispers in the air. Yosinoff \u201970, wearing a warmup suit in the royal blue of this Division III school, thinks he\u2019s wrapped up another productive day, prepping another conference championship team for another postseason run.

Instead, he is about to start unwrapping. The Emmanuel Saints come marching back onto Andy Yosinoff Court, bearing gifts \u2026 and a cake. It is the day after Super Bowl Sunday, which also happens to be Yosinoff\u2019s 78th birthday.

The team presents him with a large, framed color photo\u2014a team photo from the Jan. 8 game against Wheaton College, when Yosinoff surpassed Notre Dame Hall of Famer Muffet McGraw, becoming the seventh-winningest coach in women\u2019s college basketball history with victory number 937. Then comes the gag gift\u2014a red-white-and-blue New York Giants ski cap (Yosinoff has been a Yankees and Giants fan all his life)\u2014a rousing song-and-dance rendition of \u201cHappy Birthday,\u201d and the cutting and eating of the cake.

Yosinoff, an emotional sort to begin with\u2014his game-day coaching style is nonstop sideline animation, with vocals\u2014is clearly moved by the team\u2019s gesture. Most touching, though, is the gift of a box overflowing with personal letters and cards from every single player and coach on the team. He tears up and says he\u2019ll read them all later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve been single my whole life,\u201d says Yosinoff. \u201cMy team, my players \u2026 have been my family.\u201d

\u201cThe most important thing I’ve accomplished is to touch lives, to have relationships with my former players,\u201d Yosinoff says, seated in his office\u2014which is crammed with photos and artifacts from a basketball life\u2014and wearing the Giants cap with tags still attached. \u201cOver 400 of them have graduated. I\u2019ve been invited to meals and weddings. I\u2019ve been there after their babies were born. My relationships with them are much more important than what we accomplished in basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Coach<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Coach Andy Yosinoff delivers a locker-room pep talk before the Feb. 25 postseason matchup against New England College. The Saints won, 62-38, and advanced to the GNAC semifinals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201c<\/span>The most important thing I’ve accomplished is to touch lives, to have relationships with my former players.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00ad\u2014Andy Yosinoff<\/strong> \u201970<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Yosinoff and his Saints have accomplished quite a lot. In nearly a half-century at the same school, he\u2019s had 47 winning seasons, 20 conference titles in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference, including the 2025-26 season; 22 NCAA tournament appearances, including this season; and one memorable run to the Final Four in 2001. Yosinoff finished the 2025-26 season with 951 victories. His legacy, though, is more about the victories that cannot be counted.
 
\u201cHe\u2019s much more than someone I coach with. He is family to me. He’s family to my family,\u201d says assistant coach Meghan Kirwan, a former star player at Emmanuel College who is now in her 10th year as Yosinoff\u2019s assistant coach.

In fact, Yosinoff is a father figure to many of his players, past and present. \u201cWe still have a great relationship. My kids actually call him Grandpa,\u201d says former player and optometrist, Dr. Lesa Dennis-Mahamed, a 1989 Emmanuel College graduate. \u201cA lot of players forget who their coaches are. But not us. He was an awesome coach. He supported his players. He recognized our potential, and he pushed us to be the best that we can be, on and off the court.\u201d

In her case, that included helping her navigate a post-college path. \u201cWhen I was thinking about a career, optometry came up, and he took the idea and ran full force with it, calling the school that I was applying to [New England College of Optometry] and writing a letter of recommendation. He\u2019s been one of my biggest supporters. Because of his help, I own my own private practice in Roxbury, Massachusetts,\u201d Dennis-Mahamed says, adding that her Emmanuel jersey\u2014No. 35\u2014hangs in her office, at Yosinoff\u2019s insistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yosinoff with Meghan Kirwan, a former star player for Emmanuel College, now in her 10th year as Yosinoff\u2019s assistant coach.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201c<\/span>He\u2019s much more than someone I coach with. He is family to me. He’s family to my family.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00ad\u2014Meghan Kirwan<\/strong> Assistant Basketball Coach, Emmanuel College<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Office decor aside, Yosinoff is not a control freak despite his vast experience and success. In fact, he loves interacting with a large staff (four assistants plus one graduate assistant). Kirwan appreciates the collaboration. \u201cCoaching with him has been a joy. He has an incredible way of putting a lot of trust in me and allowing me to really grow,\u201d she says. In fact, she thinks his trust in his staff is one of the tools that helps the team win. And winning, she acknowledges, \u201cis important. We love to win.\u201d

Another thing about Yosinoff, Kirwin adds, \u201cHe doesn\u2019t act like he knows it all. He likes to hear other people\u2019s opinions. Even after 49 years, he\u2019s still listening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Early on, Yosinoff listened to the advice of his father, Louis, a teacher in the Providence public schools who loved sports, \u201cand got me rooting for the Yankees and Giants as a kid.\u201d Louis Yosinoff became a guidance counselor, helping students get into college and instilling the importance of helping others into his only child. Andy was raised in a kosher household and is proud of his Jewish heritage. He coached the women\u2019s basketball team at the 2005 Maccabiah Games, the so-called Jewish Olympics, where his team won all five games and earned a gold medal.

\u201cIt was a tremendous experience,\u201d Yosinoff says of the competition, which is held in Israel every four years, attracting nearly 10,000 athletes from around the world. \u201cFor the first week, no basketball. They just take you around to learn about the country. For someone brought up in a kosher home, it was pretty special. I keep the gold medal at home.\u201d 

It\u2019s just one of his many honors, including three halls of fame and counting. This year, Yosinoff will be inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and will receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Emmanuel. He had hoped to be voted into the prestigious Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in the Class of 2026, but though he was nominated for a third time, the call did not come when the finalists were announced in February. 

He is a member of the Emmanuel College Hall of Fame (Class of 2025), and before that, in 2013, his alma mater inducted him into the University of Rhode Island Hall of Fame. That accolade was for being a standout scholarship tennis player, including an undefeated Yankee Conference championship season in his senior year, 1970.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The 1970 911爆料 senior tennis team. Left, in foreground, Coach Ted Norris. Seated, from left: Tom Sherman \u201970, Andy Yosinoff \u201970, Irwin Shorr \u201970, Fred Brown \u201970, and Peter Rapelye \u201970. Standing, from left: Bill Nesbitt \u201974, Tad Connerton \u201971.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201c<\/span>Tennis is the main reason I went to 911爆料, and it was the biggest part of my life on campus.\n\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Andy Yosinoff<\/strong> ’70<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe beat UConn at UConn. We became not only champions, but family,\u201d Yosinoff says of the bond he formed with his Rhody teammates beginning in their freshman year, 1966. \u201cWhen they named the court after me at Emmanuel, all my 911爆料 tennis teammates showed up.\u201d The attendees were Bill Nesbitt \u201974, Peter Rapelye \u201970, Tad Connerton \u201971, Irwin Shorr \u201970, Tom Sherman \u201970, Peter Barlow \u201969, M.A. \u201972, and Fred Brown \u201970, who died on Feb. 26.

\u201cWe\u2019ve stayed connected for 60 years. It\u2019s unbelievable. We meet for dinner at least three times a year, usually on Federal Hill (in Providence). Guys fly in from out of town. Tennis is the main reason I went to 911爆料, and it was the biggest part of my life on campus,\u201d he says. \u201cThose were great times. When we won at Connecticut, it was a phenomenal feeling. We threw our legendary coach, Ted Norris, into the lake. It was the most memorable day of my college career.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So how did Andy Yosinoff, tennis prodigy, go from the baseline to the sideline? A physical education major at 911爆料, he got his first coaching \u201cjob\u201d as a 911爆料 sophomore when his fraternity, Phi Mu Delta, recruited him. \u201cFor some reason, they asked me to be the basketball coach. So that’s where I started,\u201d Yosinoff says. \u201cI coached for three years. We never lost a game. We won three 911爆料 intramural championships. That\u2019s where I developed my philosophy of running and pressing.\u201d

His 911爆料 tennis coach had connections at Miami University of Ohio, so Yosinoff got his master\u2019s degree in education there, while also serving as a graduate assistant for the school\u2019s tennis team. He had hoped to coach tennis after graduation. Instead, he found himself in a variety of jobs\u2014working at the Young Men\u2019s Hebrew Association in New Jersey, serving as a substitute teacher in Boston, and finally working as a full-time physical education teacher in the Boston public schools, where he stayed for 34 years. 

In 1977, he answered an ad in The Boston Globe<\/em> for a tennis coach at Emmanuel College, then a women\u2019s college.  \u201cI came over for an interview. The athletic director told me the hours of the tennis job, and it wasn’t going to work with my teaching job,\u201d Yosinoff recalls. \u201cBefore the interview was over, I asked, \u2018Do you have a basketball coach?\u2019 She said, \u2018No.\u2019 I said, \u2018Now you do.\u2019 That’s how it all started.\u201d

Yosinoff\u2019s first season at Emmanuel was in 1978, the year of the historic blizzard. \u201cLuckily, half the games were snowed out. We had only five or six players, no scoreboard, and our court was only 84 feet long (10 feet shorter than regulation),\u201d he laughs, as he recalls the 3-7 record he posted in the abbreviated season. \u201cI don\u2019t deal well with losing, so I started recruiting players in cities. I started in Boston, expanded to New York, and by the 1980s, I was recruiting the whole East Coast. I always had diverse teams.\u201d

And, eventually, very good ones. His 1986-87 team was ranked No. 1 nationally in Division III and earned the first NCAA tournament bid in school history. That became commonplace under the effervescent coach, who continued teaching adaptive physical education in Boston, even after he was named athletic director at Emmanuel in 1986, a role he held until 2003.

Yosinoff has fond memories of his only Final Four team in the 2000-01 season, when the Saints earned the No. 1 seed in the Northeast Region. They reached the Elite Eight, where they played at New York University, which had a Division III women\u2019s basketball program despite having an enrollment of more than 30,000 students. Emmanuel College\u2014a women\u2019s college that shifted to coeducation later that year\u2014had an enrollment of 500.

\u201cMost people didn\u2019t give us a chance,\u201d Yosinoff says of playing NYU, which had a 26-1 record. \u201cBut somehow, we pulled it out in overtime (74-70), and the story was in The New York Times<\/em> the next day: \u2018Little Emmanuel beats NYU and is going to the Final Four.\u2019 Unfortunately, the game was played in Danbury, Connecticut, that year, so we didn\u2019t get to go away. We had to play Washington University (of St. Louis), a really good team, and we lost, 78-62.\u201d

Yosinoff has never returned to the Final Four but has reached the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight. This year\u2019s team won the GNAC with an undefeated regular season, then won the conference tournament to return to the NCAA tournament for the first time in four years. He is justifiably proud of his teams from 2000-06, which won 72 straight league games, an NCAA record at the time, and his squads that won 68 consecutive GNAC games from 2010-16.

The Saints have been road warriors, too. Yosinoff has always believed traveling was an integral part of the basketball experience. In the 1980s, he started taking his team on trips during Christmas break. \u201cThey were cultural trips, fundraising trips, and basketball trips. We\u2019ve gone to Ireland, China, Beijing, London, St. Thomas, and many times to Florida and California,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a great way for my players to get to know each other better and to play against good competition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yosinoff with his coaching staff and the 2025-26 Emmanuel College Saints. The team made it to the first round of the NCAA Division III Women\u2019s Basketball Tournament, falling to Bowdoin College, and finished the year with a 22-7 record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andy\u2019s dad, Louis Yosinoff, traveled with the team to Ireland and became a regular at Emmanuel games\u2014at home and on the road. \u201cHe\u2019d drive up here all the time from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where I was raised. He traveled with us on the road until he got too old,\u201d Andy says. \u201cAll my players had a relationship with my father. He died in 2017 at 99 years old. There were more than 300 people at the funeral in Providence. Three of his students from 50 years ago got up and talked. He was an inspiration, not just to me, but to a lot of people.\u201d

A section of the blue bleachers is painted yellow where Louis used to sit. On a wall near the entrance to the court hangs a frame with photos of the Saints\u2019 No. 1 fan surrounded by Emmanuel players. The inscription reads: \u201cWith deep gratitude to Louis Yosinoff for his support and loyalty to Emmanuel. We dedicate these bleachers in his honor. (November 19, 2022)\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yes, Andy Yosinoff has left an indelible mark on Emmanuel College athletics. Not just the tangible evidence of his name, painted in bold, blue script on both sides of the court. Not just the lifelong bond he has formed with generations of players. And not just all those victories.

His legacy also includes a touch of showmanship, especially during games. Dennis-Mahamed laughs when asked about Yosinoff\u2019s antics. \u201cSometimes I wondered if the fans came to see us play or to see his animation on the sidelines. I don’t know which was more entertaining.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yosinoff is known for working the sideline with energy and animation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201c<\/span>If you haven’t seen him work a sideline, you are missing out. There is no other coach who takes more steps up and down the court. It\u2019s contagious. He\u2019s so passionate, so energetic about every play.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00ad\u2014Meghan Kirwan<\/strong> Assistant Basketball Coach, Emmanuel College<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Dennis-Mahamed played nearly 30 years ago, but Kirwan can testify that nothing\u2019s changed today. \u201cIf you haven’t seen him work a sideline, you are missing out. There is no other coach who takes more steps up and down the court,\u201d says Kirwan. \u201cIt\u2019s contagious. He\u2019s so passionate, so energetic about every play. It\u2019s genuine with Andy because we\u2019re not on TV. We don\u2019t have big crowds. He cares about the kids. He cares about the game.\u201d

Among active women\u2019s college basketball coaches, Yosinoff is the oldest and has the longest tenure at one school. \u201cIt really is unheard of what he has done at Emmanuel. It makes the alumni 911爆料 so unique, because we all played for the same coach,\u201d Kirwan adds. \u201cWhen we get together, the stories that we have are from different generations of his life. It\u2019s amazing. What we have here is really, really special. And Andy is still going. He\u2019s not retiring anytime soon.\u201d

Neither the legend nor the birthday candles have burned out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In January, Andy Yosinoff \u201970, women\u2019s basketball coach and athletic director at Emmanuel College in Boston, became the seventh-winningest coach in women\u2019s basketball history, surpassing Notre Dame Hall of Famer Muffet McGraw. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":18668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-reads","architecture-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18663"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18805,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18663\/revisions\/18805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}