Gambino’s Connection to Tulane University Sports

At Gambino’s, we’re proud of our bonds with the community. For years that connection has been extra strong when it comes to Green Wave athletics at Tulane University!

Gambino’s Bakery is proud to be a business steeped in the greater New Orleans community.

Over our 75 years, we’ve developed close ties with many of the institutions that make our city special. Perhaps none of those ties is longer-lasting than our connection to Tulane University Athletics.

One early link was due to the sporting prowess of former Gambino’s owner, Sam Scelfo, who was a defensive lineman for the Green Wave football team from 1967 – 1970. His tenure included an impressive 17-3 drubbing of the Colorado Buffaloes in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee. That was the final game of his final season.

Fourteen years later, Scelfo was leading Gambino’s Bakery. He took over in 1984 and it didn’t take long for him to hire Ralph Pedersen, Tulane University’s head basketball coach of seven seasons durings the 1960s and ‘70s.

At Gambino’s Pedersen was responsible for our frozen foods division — at the time that included items like cornbread, garlic bread, and biscuits — helping to grow Gambino’s distribution from Louisiana-only in 1983, to 22 states six years later.

But back when Pedersen was at the helm of Tulane’s basketball team, SEC programs were seriously underfunded. They simply were unable to compete with other powerhouses. As a result, Pedersen’s seven-year record was a lamentable-sounding 68 wins and 104 losses, but due to the limited resources he had to work with, it’s an impressive feat that those 68 wins makes him the eight winningest coach in Tulane basketball history.

In a 1989 feature in the Times-Picayune, the former skipper kept a sense of humor about the challenges his teams faced on the court, and the twists and turns his career has taken since then.

The article began: “When Ralph Pedersen was Tulane’s basketball coach, the program lacked the money to be competitive.”

“Now,” Pedersen joked with the reporter, “I’m up to my neck in dough, but it’s the kind you bake.”

It was a fun write-up for Gambino’s and the former coach. Pedersen told the reporter one more story — this one from his coaching days — that we thought was hilarious.

He recalled a game against West Coast powerhouse UCLA. He said it was his most memorable loss given how vaunted the visiting Bruins team was at the time. Not a single person expected Tulane to win, but when the Bruins came down the court on their first possession, they missed their first shot.

In contrast, Tulane grabbed the rebound and hit our first shot. Unexpectedly, the Green Wave was up 2-0.

The crowd was excited and the early lead — no matter how small — was welcomed. Still, players and coach knew it was unlikely they were going to maintain that lead against an historically dominant team like UCLA.

Pedersen recalled the scene years later for the Times-Picayune: “I remember [Tulane guard] Terry Habig running past our bench with his fist held high and yelling, ‘We got ‘em now!’ The next time I looked up, it was 14-2 UCLA.”

Familial ties with Green Wave football

Basketball wasn’t the only Tulane team with which Gambino’s had close ties. 

In 1998, the New Orleans university’s football team was a perfect 11-0. But, before playing in the Liberty Bowl at the end of the year, head coach Tommy Bowden was hired away by Clemson University. 

That left Tulane in the unenviable position of searching for a new head coach before the final game of their season.

In comes Chris Scelfo, assistant head coach of the University of Georgia — and also brother of Gambino’s owner Sam Scelfo!

Like his brother, Chris was a football player at Tulane — even earning the honor of being named team captain. 

And while stepping into supporting coaching positions at the University of Oklahoma, Marshall University, and UGA, the head coaching job at Tulane would be Chris’ first experience as boss.

Fortunately, his head coaching career got off to a promising start. On New Year’s Eve, in 1998, Scelfo led his new team onto the Memphis field at the Liberty Bowl, defeating Brigham Young University to finish an undefeated season!

In 2002, Scelfo led the Green Wave to another Bowl victory — this time winning the Hawaii Bowl against the University of Hawaii Warriors!

Those Bowl-winning seasons were unfortunately the only two winning seasons during Coach Scelfo’s tenure. However, in addition to those victories, he is known for his ability to hold his team together during an unprecedentedly difficult 2005. Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans just before the college football season was set to begin and the team was forced to play all 11 of their games on the road. Each game was played in a different city and, although the team only amassed a 2-9 record, players and coach were inspiring in the way they stuck together during a traumatic few months.

Louisiana is no stranger to struggling sports teams from time to time, of course. (See: “The New Orleans Aints,” for example.) And local newspapers are particularly skilled at making light of these struggles.

In a 1999 article highlighting a series of jokes, the writer asked, “Where does the Scelfo family make cream puffs?”

The answer?

“Gambino’s Bakery and the Tulane football program.”

Ouch! Okay, okay — take it easy!

It’s not the only joke related to local football teams that featured our bakery.

After losing eight fumbles early in the 2007 high school football season, Hahnville High School’s legendary coach Lou Valdin quipped to a Times-Picayune sports reporter, “We make more turnovers than Gambino’s Bakery!”

Of course, Valdin would solve his team’s turnover woes, and Tulane University’s football team is hardly a program of cream puffs anymore. Nowadays the Green Wave is often a nationally ranked Top 25 team, regularly featuring in Bowl games. They even won an American Athletic Conference championship in 2022 on their way to a Cotton Bowl victory.

This year — like every year — we’re excited to cheer on our local college football team, as well as all our Tulane athletics squads in what we hope will be another exciting year of New Orleans sports!