John Lonardo

By Michael Malaszczyk Coaches are the backbone of baseball. A team’s style of playing, the playing time allocation, the relationships in the clubhouse, and so on are very much dependent on the coach. In terms of sheer knowledge of how to coach, one won’t find someone more knowledgeable than Coach John Lonardo (currently coaching at Locust Valley), who is retiring after a whopping 34 years of coaching baseball. In an interview with Axcess Baseball, Coach Lonardo was happy to share his thoughts and reflections on his long, storied career. “I’ve been coaching since 1988,” said Lonardo. “I got my start playing college baseball at John Jay College. When I wrapped up with college baseball, I got my first job as an assistant coach at Bethpage High School.” After spending a number of years as an a...