Davíd Livingston Carrasco was an American government official and college basketball coach. Carrasco was a native of El Segundo Barrio in El Paso, Texas, and graduated from the

Texas College of Mines The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a public research university in El Paso, Texas. It is a member of the University of Texas System. UTEP is the second-largest university in the United States to have a majority Mexican American stude ...

. He played professional basketball in Chihuahua, Mexico, and was on the Mexico national basketball team in the

1938 Central American and Caribbean Games The 4th Central American and Caribbean Games were held in Panama City, the capital city of Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanni ...

. Carrasco then worked as a teacher before serving in the United States Navy during World War II. After the war, he earned a master's degree at the University of Maryland, College Park, and then coached boys' basketball at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he won three state championships as head coach from 1951 to 1955. In 1956, Carrasco was hired as the athletic director for

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

, where he was also the head basketball coach. He integrated the

American Eagles The American Eagles are the athletics teams that represent the American University in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I competition. American is a member of the Patriot League in all sports except wrestling, where it i ...

basketball team by recruiting black players for the first time, and the team won three Eastern Regional Division II NCAA basketball championships in the late 1950s. Carrasco was the first

Mexican American Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...

to serve as the head coach of a men's basketball team at a major university in the United States. In 1965, Carrasco left American to become regional Peace Corps director in Ecuador. He was Olympic attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City for the

1968 Summer Olympics The 1968 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada) and commonly known as Mexico 1968 ( es, México 1968), were an international multi-sport eve ...

. He returned to El Paso in 1969 to start a Job Corps program there. The El Paso Job Corps opened under Carrasco's leadership in September 1970, and it developed into one of the most successful programs in the country. After his death, the facility was dedicated as the David L. Carrasco Job Corps Center. Carrasco died in El Paso on October 17, 1990, by suicide.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carrasco, David Livingston 20th-century births 1990 deaths Year of birth uncertain American men's basketball coaches Basketball coaches from Texas Basketball players from El Paso, Texas American Eagles men's basketball coaches American Eagles athletic directors University of Texas at El Paso alumni Sportspeople from El Paso, Texas