Raised in North Bergen, New Jersey, Callandrillo played basketball at North Bergen High School.[1] In 1977, as a senior, he averaged 32 points a game, was a high school All-American, and led the school to a high school state championship.[2]
In his four years at Seton Hall, Callandrillo scored a total of 1,985 points.[6] He was later inducted into the Seton Hall Pirates Hall of Fame, in 1989.[7]
Professional career
After his college basketball career, Callandrillo was drafted by the Houston Rockets, in the 1982 NBA draft, but he never played for the team in the NBA. He instead played with the Rochester Zeniths in the American Continental Basketball Association (CBA), in the 1982–83 season. He then played with the Bracknell Pirates of the British Basketball League (BBL), in the 1983–84 season. Various reports credit him with a league high 52-point game that season against Sunderland. In fact the game was in a pre-season tournament played at Bracknell Sports Centre. It was the highest scored for Bracknell in any game at the time, but didn't count in the official records.[8]
Callandrillo's son, Danny, also played college basketball, at Bryant University, and also played professionally in Italy.[11] One of Dan's older brothers was Paul Callandrillo, an actor who was known professionally as Paul Land.
^Roberts, Jeff. "Where are they now? Seton Hall's Dan Calandrillo", The Record (Bergen County), March 30, 2010. Accessed August 12, 2016. "Like the story of how he made it out of North Bergen, the youngest of 13 kids born to deaf parents, all crammed into a three-bedroom, fourth-floor walk-up.... He would become an All-State player at North Bergen, winning a State title in 1977 and beating Kelly Tripucka-led Bloomfield in a nail-biter semifinal."
