Ben “J.R.” DiNallo founded the Felician men's golf program in 2005. While simultaneously serving as the Golden Falcons' athletics director, he coached the team for the first 14 years of its existence. After two seasons away from the links, he became interim co-head coach once again in September 2021 and was reappointed the permanent head coach in January 2022. He also serves as the University's Senior Athletics Development Officer.
DiNallo has sent four individual golfers to the NCAA Regionals -- Joe Leardo in 2010 and 2011, Andrew Geesey in 2016, and Gonzalo Maldonado Felices in 2022. Geesey won the 2016 Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference individual championship, and the Golden Falcons set a school record that year by finishing second in the conference tournament. Joe Peters earned All-CACC honors in 2007. The Golden Falcons have also claimed three CACC All-Tournament honorees, seven CACC Team Sportsmanship Awards and 21 league All-Academic selections under DiNallo's watch.
DiNallo is the only person to have continuously served in the Felician athletics department for its entire existence. He was named director of athletics in February 2003, shortly after the program gained full membership in NCAA Division II, and served as A.D. for nearly 19 years. Felician's third, and longest-serving, A.D., he presided over the Golden Falcons' expansion from eight to 14 sports and from approximately 150 to 300 student-athletes. The Athletics Hall of Fame was instituted and the Wellness and Recreation Center was built on his watch. In January 2022, he stepped down and assumed his current role in the University Advancement office.
DiNallo's coaching career at Felician spans four sports and 24 years. He joined Felician as a part-time assistant coach for the first two years of the women’s basketball and softball programs, from 1996 to 1998. He was then promoted to the full-time position of assistant director of athletics/sports information director, head women’s basketball coach, and head coach of the brand-new women’s soccer team. DiNallo coached the soccer team for five years – until his appointment as athletics director – posting a cumulative record of 49-38-4. His 2001 Golden Falcons set a school record with 14 victories and won the CACC regular-season title. He was named CACC and NAIA Regional Coach of the Year, and the team was inducted into the Felician Athletics Hall of Fame in 2019. In his first season of basketball, Felician went 19-12, setting a school record for wins that still stands. He resigned in 2005, but was named interim head coach in the spring of 2007 and served until the end of the 2007-08 season. He has 91 career victories.
DiNallo is a member of the CACC Hall of Fame Committee. While Felician's A.D., he was the league's executive committee supervisor for women's soccer and its directors' council liaison to the sports information directors. He has previously served the CACC as its vice president and treasurer and with other committee work. DiNallo is also a past member of several NCAA Division II East Region Advisory Committees, most recently men's golf. He serves on many Felician internal committees and organizations, and was recently elected to the inaugural Staff Assembly.
In October 2017, DiNallo was inducted into the Immaculate Conception High School of Lodi Hall of Fame. An accomplished play-by-play broadcaster, DiNallo has called several league championship tournaments on the CACC Network, and often fills in on the headphones on Golden Falcon home games.
Prior to joining Felician, DiNallo coached girls’ soccer and basketball at Immaculate Heart Academy, Academy of the Holy Angels, and Emerson High. He had a .624 winning percentage as a high school head soccer coach, and won the 1990 Ridgewood News Suburban Coach of the Year Award. A graduate of Hackensack High and the Columbia School of Broadcasting, DiNallo lives in River Edge with his wife, Valerie, and sons Brian, Michael and Luke.
last updated 6/8/22
