SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -Hal DeJulio, who played on Pete Newell’s 1949 NIT championship team at the University of San Francisco, has died. He was 83.
The school said the USF Hall of Famer died Saturday. While he was a role player for the Dons in the late 1940s for Newell, DeJulio worked closely hosting recruits and selling the school to potential student-athletes. In fact, DeJulio’s hard work is considered one of the key reasons Bill Russell came to USF.
In a feature in the 1972-73 media guide, DeJulio explained why the university meant so much to him.
“I guess you call it the human equation,” DeJulio said then. “By that I mean the feeling of closeness shared by everyone affiliated with the university: priests, lay faculty, students, coaches, athletes, everybody. The great values of life that I received from USF are what have kept me close. The human equation.”
He was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 1975.
DeJulio, a prep star in nearby Richmond, was born Oct. 2, 1924. Services are scheduled for Saturday.
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