Well, it’s half serious, half tongue in cheek. But we have a “why” personality. So in practices, very often you’ll have a kid who’ll ask why. Why run the play this way? Let’s run it that way. I don’t find it’s a problem. I just find it interesting when you compare it to other schools and other programs, where if the coach says “Go left,” they go left. I say “Go left,” and they say, “Why not right?”
Is it true that New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver once played for the Maccabees?
Sure. Shelly was very closely involved in the team. He played high school basketball at RJJ, and he was a very good player. I believe he enrolled in YU in 1960, played for a year, and then I think he was a manager for three years.
Have any other famous people played for YU?
I think the prominent attorney Leon Charney played back in the 1950s.
And then there’s David Kufeld.
Yes, David Kufeld was drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers [in 1980]. The owner of the Trail Blazers was Jewish and he wanted to draft the best Jewish basketball player in the country. So they selected David, who was a terrific player – he was the leading rebounder in the country –and brought him out to their rookie camp.
At the end of the week he got cut, but David is the only player in the history of Yeshiva University who was drafted and performed at a rookie camp.
YU players sometimes wear yarmulkes, sometimes don’t. Has there ever been internal discussions on the topic?
Over the years, there’s always been [people who thought] players should be wearing yarmulkes on the court. Others have been a little more lenient.
For a period of time there was a whole issue about whether the NCAA would allow you to wear “appendages” because it was a danger….
So there’s been a lot of back and forth. In my opinion, the issue was made more out of than it really should have been. I mean the yarmulke is not tefillin. But I can certainly see both sides of the coin.
You write in your memoirs that you have had to sometimes act as a surrogate parent at times to your players. One time, apparently, you even had to interfere in a player’s dating life.
Well, it didn’t happen often, but occasionally kids would be on the team who didn’t come from the strongest Jewish background. So one day I came on the court, and there was a young, attractive African American woman with a large bright silver cross sitting behind our bench. I thought for sure she had sat behind the wrong bench, but she informed me, “No, I am number [so and so’s] girlfriend.”
After considering whether it was my responsibility to say something, I spoke to the young man and told him I thought he was making a potential mistake dating someone who was not Jewish. He was very upset and accused me of being a racist.
After that, we didn’t have any further conversations. Maybe two years later, I was walking in Forest Hills with my wife on a Saturday night, and this young man jumps out of a car, runs over to me, says, “Hi, coach, I just want to let you know I’m engaged to a Jewish girl,” jumps back into the car, and drives away.
So you never know how things are going to end up. Today, he’s married with two kids who went to yeshiva elementary school.
YU has a gym today but didn’t before 1985. What was YU basketball like when you played on the team back in the 1960s?
