The Wisdom of a Coach: Health, Wealth, Education, Athletics, a Game Plan for Life

By Barry Goldsmith

Read about from our leaders have made a mess of Education (the foundation of America) discussing charter schools, no child left behind, accountability and to the top.
For tennis teachers learn the strokes, singles and doubles strategy and the best methods to practice. For health teacher share about - his methods to make every lesson significant and meaning for basketball coaches learn the triangle and two offense taught used by Bernie Red Sarachek long before Phil Jackson, Tex Winter, or Red Helzman knew it. The author has taught and coached 1000’s of tennis and basketball players, produced two city and two national championships, over 50 all American and nine national singles and doubles individual champions.
Travel with the author and his wife around the world visiting over 45 nations and three Olympics and participating as a coach despite having the American Dream, in the Moscow Games the best and most beautiful wife, a dream house in Brooklyn, top of the line calls; wonderful twin sons and family and usually enough wealth he experiences and shares with you Forrest Gumps’ statement. “If you live long enough SHIT HAPPENS to everyone. It is not as if it will happen but when and how you cope, deal with, and handles the distress of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984537188

Barry Goldsmith

Experience growing up in the N.Y. City Housing Projects in the 50’s and 60’s. You earned a Ph.D: Poor, Hungry and Driven- A kid from the 50’s meant no drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, sex, playing sports and games in the summer from 800 AM to 9 PM starting at 5 years old. It meant doing well in school, earning excellent grades, and respecting all adults. The wisdom of a coach is really fine books. Health, Wealth, Education, A Game Plan for life and a conclusion. The author a high school and college teacher of health, physical education, basketball and tennis coach for fifty years will share his experiences. With stories of some of her coaches and athletes of the last 50 years, women buffet John McEnroe, Arthur Ashe, Dean Smith, Bobby Knight, Bernie Red Sarachek, Dr George Steelan, Lou Carnesecca, Petrief Ewing, Tennis Vander Meer, to motivation speaker Mr. Wiklin Anthony Robbins and many more athletes, teachers coaches, and writers.

Book preview

The Wisdom of a Coach:

Health, Wealth,

Education, Athletics, a

GAME

Plan for Life

Barry Goldsmith

Copyright © 2020 by Barry Goldsmith.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2018907477

ISBN:       Hardcover         978-1-9845-3719-5

                 Softcover           978-1-9845-3720-1

                 eBook                978-1-9845-3718-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 03/24/2020

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

635817

To

Rachelle Clare Goldsmith

My Wife

Nothing lasts forever except

my love for you

Barry

Growing up in the New York City housing projects in the ’50s and ’60s, you earned a PhD—poor, hungry, and driven. Most youngsters I associated with from the ’50s meant no drugs, no cigarettes, no alcohol, no sex, playing sports in the summer from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. It meant earning excellent grades, respecting adults, teachers, and authority. Doing the right thing.

The Wisdom of a Coach: Health, Wealth, Education, Athletics, A Game Plan for Life, is five books. The author, a high school and college teacher of health and physical education and a basketball and tennis coach for fifty years, shares his knowledge, experiences, stories, and aphorisms of Warren Buffett, John McEnroe, Arthur Ashe, Dr. George Sheehan, Venus Williams, Dennis Van Der Meer, Rick Macci, Nick Bollettieri, Prof. Morrie Schwartz, motivational speakers Anthony Robbins, Raymond Aaron, coaches Dean Smith, Joe Paterno, Vince Lombardi, John Wooden, and many more coaches, teachers, philosophers, authors, and athletes.

The author discusses the present mess of education (the foundation of America), charter schools, No Child Left Behind, accountability, and The Race to the Top.

Tennis teachers and players will learn strokes, singles and doubles strategy, the serve and drills to practice. Health and all teachers will learn how to make lessons meaningful and significant. Basketball coaches will learn the triangle and two motion offense, taught by Bernie Red Sarachek long before adopted by Phil Jackson, Tex Winter, or Red Holtzman (Sarachek’s pupil). The author has taught and coached thousands of tennis and basketball players, coached two NYC PSAL championships, two national NJCAA tennis championships, fifty-six All-Americans, and seventeen singles and doubles NJCAA individual tennis champions. He is a member of the NJCAA Men’s Tennis Hall of Fame, a USPTA Master Professional, and a USTA High Performance Tennis Coach.

Travel with the author and his wife Rachelle, who have visited more than forty-five nations, watched three Olympics, and walked into opening day ceremonies as the 2009 USA Maccabi Games tennis coach before fifty thousand cheering Israelis.

Learn how, despite having achieved the American dream, he overcomes Forrest Gump’s statement: If you live long enough, shit happens to everyone. It is not will it happen but when. Learn how the author copes and handles distresses we all encounter.

Read the one thousand philosophies, solutions, suggestions, answers, and strategies of the author, philosophers, coaches, teachers, writers, elders, politicians, and athletes, especially in the chapter A Game Plan for Life.

Well done!! I truly enjoyed the book(s). I believe that the materials were put together beautifully, in a way that will be so powerful and helpful for coaches and their athletes, and everyone in general. I greatly respect and embrace the spirit and the message of this book. I am truly a believer in the power of inspiration and motivation. The inspirational stories and quotes illustrate the great connection between real life and the world of athletics. This book will serve as a great template for coaches and students alike. Its message will serve as a daily reminder to make sure that your backbone is as busy as your wishbone.

—Gil Reyes

Life Coach and Strength and Conditioning

Coach for Andre Agassi, Angelique Kerber and,

Fernando Verdasco

==============================

This book by Barry Goldsmith is a must read! In my fourty five years in this industry I have never met a man with a greater passion for the game and a genuine love for all of his players.

Enjoy this read.

Paul Assainte

17 Times National Champions

Trinity College Men’s Squash Coach

Barry is a tennis lifer! He always knows who is the best of the best. His passion & heart always in the right place.

Rick Macci

Teacher: Venus and Serena Williams

              Jennifer Capriati

              Tommy Ho

              Maria Sharapova

Andy Roddick

              Sofia Kenin

==============================

Barry Goldsmith, United States Professional Tennis Association Master Professional reveals a lifetime of knowledge, stories and experiences to improve your tennis game. More important read and master the quotes, philosophies and advice of the games greatest college and professional athletic coaches and players to improve your mental game, to become a champion.

Brian Teacher

Austrilan Open Champion 1980

University of Southern California

WTP 1981 ranking #7

Full Court Tennis™ Academy

Lewis H. Hartman

O/C - HCK Recreation

456 W. 43rd St

N.Y., NY 10036

August 20, 2018

Barry,

Congratulations on your latest book. What a mighty effort to distill your experience as a coach, parent, and teacher to help others. You have addressed timeless issues that every generation faces.

Your personal commitment to young people helping them lead productive lives has always been inspiring.

Best wishes,

Skip Hartman

CEO of HCK Recreation

CEO New York Jr. Tennis League

ENDORSEMENT

The author shares his sixty-five years of basketball knowledge and experiences, which include seventeen as a high school and college coach, and six years as a high school/college varsity player. He brings the game of basketball, its coaches and players to life by relating many interesting stories, quotes and philosophies. Many readers will find the section about the triangle and two motion team offense that Barry learned from Bernie Red Sarachek of special interest.

—Charlie Rosen

Hunter College Hall of Fame

Continental Basketball League Coach

Eastern League Professional

Author of 24 Books

FOREWORD

Barry Goldsmith’s book The Wisdom of a Coach– Health, Wealth, Education, Athletics, A Game Plan for Life is a must-read for everyone associated with education–teachers, mentors, coaches, administrators, supervisors, as well as anyone who is interested in learning about specific topics such as basketball, tennis, financial planning, educational issues, health management strategies, and options for living life to its fullest. Part biography and part instructional manual, Barry shares his thinking on teaching, living and dealing with life’s obstacles. His inclusion of over 1,000 aphorisms will surely catch your attention and make you reflect on their meaning. This book has something for everyone, whether read from cover to cover or just individual sections. As a friend of Barry for over 50 years, I know the book is written from his heart and his keen desire to share the wisdom he has learned over his lifetime. I congratulate him on the time and effort he spent writing this book and for sharing his many insights with us.

Neal Aronin

• Chairperson, Health and Physical Education, John Bowne High School, Queens, NY 1991-2003

• Director, Physical Education and Athletics, Seaford, NY 1980-1989

• Instructor, Health and Physical Education Kingsborough Community College and Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY

Man surprised me most about humanity, because he sacrifices his health in order to make money, then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present, the result being that he does not live in the present or the future. He lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.

—Dalai Lama

thinker.jpg

The Thinker

By Augusto Rodin

Contents

ENDORSEMENT

Foreword

I. Introduction

II. Health

A. Definitions

1. Physical health

2. Mental health

3. Emotional health

4. Social health

5. Spiritual health

6. Environmental health

B. Mental and Emotional Health

C. Stress

1. Definitions of stress/distress

2. Stages of distress

3. Signs and symptoms of distress

4. Is stress good or bad?

5. Techniques to handle distress

6. Examples of how people have handled distress

D. `Physical Health

1. Definition of physical fitness

2. Components of physical fitness

3. How much should you exercise to be physically fit?

4. Values of being physically fit

E. Nutrition

1. Is nutrition a problem?

2. What foods should you eat?

3. What food should you not eat?

4. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

F. Substance Abuse

1. Painkillers

2. Smoking

3. Alcohol

G. Sex Education

1. Why teach sex education?

2. Problems of teen pregnancies

3. Marriage, divorce, contraceptives, STDs or STIs, and abortion

H. Technology

1. Technology, good or bad?

I. Environment

J. Education

III. Wealth

1. The need to include a chapter about wealth

2. Definitions of wealth

3. Lessons concerning wealth: Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, etc.

4. How to attain financial wealth

5. How to obtain what you want

6. Aphorisms

7. Handouts

IV. Education

1. Definition of education

2. What should an educated person know?

3. Problems with education

a.  No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

b.  Standardized testing, accountability, and charter schools

c.  Investigation of NCLB, standardized tests, and what should be taught: Diane Ravitch

4. How children learn?

5. Why children fail?

6. Aphorisms, philosophies, quotations

7. Handouts

V. Athletics

1. My athletic background

2. My experience as a basketball, tennis player, and coach

3. Meeting elite coaches and players

4. Values of athletics

5. Basketball: old school versus new school

6. Basketball for coaches and players: motion offense: triangle and two offense

7. Tennis strokes: forehand, backhand, volley, serve, overhead, lob

8. Tennis practice drills: dead ball, cooperative, competitive

9. Practice

a.  Alone on a court

b.  Use of the wall correctly

c.  How to practice with a partner

10. Tennis strategy: singles/doubles

11. Tennis: old school versus new school

12. Tennis: Forty health values: Why play tennis?

13. Tennis families and the American dream

14. Tennis: Twenty-four years working at the US Open

15. Jewish Sports Hall of Fame

16. Aphorisms

17. Handouts

VI. A Game Plan for Life

1. Professor Morrie Schwartz: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

2. Dr. George Sheehan

3. Dick Vitale

4. John Wooden

5. Aphorisms

6. Handouts

VII. Conclusions

1. Hurricane Sandy—A Fall in Hell

2. A Winter of Hell in Florida

3. Recovery

4. Publication of The Wisdom of a Coach: Health, Wealth, Education, Athletics, A Game Plan for Life

VIII. Appendix

1. Bibliography

2. Recommended Books

3. Recommended Places to Travel

4. Museums to Visit

5. Recommended Music

6. Recommended Movies

7. Recommended Theater Shows

8. Jokes

9. NYC Celebrities and Athletes

I. Introduction

Happy is the one who finds wisdom and attains understanding.

Proverbs 3:13

Wisdom is free, yet it is the most expensive thing there is, for we tend to acquire it through failure, disappointment or grief. That is why we try to share our wisdom, so others will not have to pay the price we paid.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

My life has been an incredible journey. This biography will share my wisdom, experiences, advice, successes, failures, and mistakes of seventy years as a student, educator, coach, athlete, husband, and parent.

The most important decision I made was to marry my wife, Dr. Rachelle Clare Goldsmith, June 26, 1971. Rachelle has been my best friend and the nicest person I know—intelligent, witty, a great cook, and my computer-skills person. Rachelle is the most beautiful women I have known, both inside and outside. Rachelle was nicknamed by her College Now staff Dr. Gorgeous. Rachelle possesses the ability to make everyone around her feel good and has been a fantastic mother to our twin sons, Dr. Howard Goldsmith, a podiatrist, and Dr. Robert Goldsmith, a pediatric dentist. Maimonides, the Spanish-born philosopher and physician, defined an angel not as a body dressed in white with a pair of wings that could fly, but as a dynamic force. Rachelle has been that angel as a wife, professor, administrator, supervisor, and director. We have been married for forty-eight years.

With Rachelle, I have traveled around the world. I walked into Ramat Gan’s Israeli sports stadium in 2009 as a member of the USA Maccabi delegation before fifty thousand cheering Israeli spectators and ten thousand participants from around the world; walked the streets of Jerusalem; visited the Taj Mahal in India (which does not disappoint, as beautiful as you’d expect); watched the evening and morning ceremonies for the dead at Varanasi, India; visited the Emerald Buddha complex and King’s Palace in Bangkok (the best man-made sights in the world); the Great Wall, the ancient city of Beijing, terra-cotta warriors, took a three-day cruise down the Yangtze River in China; saw Hong Kong’s skyline with their sound-and-light show; visited the pyramids, Luxor monuments and King Tut’s possessions in the Egyptian Museum; attended three Olympics (Munich in 1972, Montreal in 1976, and Atlanta in 1992 the day after the bomb blew up in the park); visited St. Basil’s Cathedral, the Kremlin and Red Square in Moscow; watched Billie Jean King play tennis at Wimbledon; toured the unbelievable Canadian Rocky Mountains visiting Vancouver, Victoria, Banff, Whistler, Lake Louise; caught salmon fishing in Alaska; watched glaciers caving on a gorgeous warm summer’s day; visited the concentration camps of Dachau in Germany and Auschwitz in Poland, spent nine hours visiting the Vatican Museum; toured Venice, Florence, Rome; visited Japan, Bali, Thailand twice, France, Spain, Portugal, England, Scotland, and most European counties, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Cambodia, Vietnam; toured American’s magnificent national parks—Bryce, Zion, Yosemite, Mesa Verde, Saguaro, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

The second major decision I made was to attend Brooklyn College, part of City University. I owe an unpayable debt to Brooklyn College. In 1962, every New York City HS graduate who earned an 86 GPA or higher was awarded a full tuition free scholarship to Brooklyn College. I paid for books and a $25 activity fee per term. I obtained my BS in health and physical education enabling me to become a physical and health educator, a basketball and tennis coach. I also attained my MS in health and physical education and a sixth-year degree in administration and supervision from Brooklyn College. Most important, in March 1966 of my senior year, I met my wife Rachelle, who also obtained her degree in health and physical education in 1968. Some of the smartest, brightest, hungriest, most disciplined, highly motivated and accomplished Americans came out of Brooklyn College’s four thousand graduation class. I taught health and physical education in the New York City Board of Education for thirty-seven years before retiring in 2001. My first job in 1966 was teaching physical education, opening the University of Maryland Baltimore County Campus (UMBC), a branch of the U of Maryland, which today educates thirty thousand students. I was awarded a graduate assistantship where I attended one of the best physical education graduate schools, the University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland. As I was about to be drafted into the Vietnam War, my cousin, Lt. Burt Finger, stationed in Vietnam advised me, Any way you can get out of the draft, get out. I returned to Brooklyn, where I would teach and coach for ten years at Midwood HS and six months at Franklin K. Lane. I then spent the next twenty-six years teaching Health, Physical Education in the Canarsie/Flatbush section of Brooklyn at South Shore HS. I was an adjunct lecturer for 6 years at Brooklyn College and an adjunct lecturer at Kingsborough Community College, where I taught tennis and health for 33 years. I coached the men’s tennis team at Kingsborough for thirty-three years, the women’s tennis team for ten years, winning the Men’s NJCAA Division III National Championship in 1998, a finalist in 1997, the Women’s National NJCAA Division III National Championship in 2009 and finalist in 2010. I was fortunate to coach more than fifty-six men and women All-American tennis players and seventeen individual singles and doubles national champions.

I started the first men’s basketball team at UMBC, today a Division I school. I coached Midwood HS men’s basketball team for three years, 1969–1972, and coached the South Shore girls’ basketball team in 1988 and 1989, reopening Madison Square Garden for the PSAL Basketball finals in 1989, coaching Katasha Artis, who played in the WNBA 3 years, earned second team HS All-American, number one women’s player in New York State and played eight years in Israel, Turkey, and Germany. Madison Square Garden had been closed for HS PSAL basketball games twenty-one years since 1968, when I sat with principals, chairpersons, and administrators, as thrown wine bottles kept breaking on the Garden’s floor, and fights and riots spilled out to Times Square.

I am a certified United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA) Master Professional. Only about 160 tennis teachers out of 15,000 USPTA professionals have earned that title, and several are no longer alive. I am also a United States Tennis Association (USTA) certified high performance tennis teacher, coached five times at the World and US Scholar Athlete Games at the University of Rhode Island, conceived in a master’s thesis by former Trinity College basketball coach Dan Doyle, administrated by Dan Doyle and Wally Halas, grandson of NFL football coach George Halas. Wally was the former Columbia and Clark University men’s basketball coach. At the World Scholar Athlete Games, 2,000 scholar athletes, artists, writers, yachtsmen, painters, singers, and chefs participated. I heard fabulous speakers such as President Bill Clinton and former US Army General and Secretary of State Colin Powell. In 2009, I was selected by the USA Maccabi Association to coach the Grand Masters USA Tennis Team, twenty players aged 60s, 70s, 80s in singles and doubles at the 18th Maccabi Games in Israel.

One of my best jobs was working in guest services for twenty-four years, thirteen on famous court 11, at the US Tennis Open. My first year in 1996, I was a player escort and the last seven years as a supervisor, all under Kathy Listner, who has thirty-six years of experience as field operations director at the Billie Jean King tennis facilities during the US Open National Tennis Championship, which lasts three weeks. The first week is the men and women’s qualifying event to select 16 men and 16 women into the 128-player main draw, Arthur Ashe Day, plus wheelchair tennis, legends, juniors men and women. It is like putting on the Super Bowl for three straight weeks. If you love tennis, the US Open is the most exciting place to be in the world. The US Open brings NYC more revenue than the New York teams (Mets, Yankees, NFL, NHL) in a season, putting on a fantastic show for 65,000-plus fans all day for two weeks. I have witnessed incredible matches, had incredible experiences, and met outstanding people at the US Open. Those stories will be told in the athletics chapter.

I have taught tennis to more than 15,000 students at South Shore, Sheepshead Bay, Midwood HS, Kingsborough Community College, Kingsborough CC adult tennis classes, New York City Parks for eighteen years at Manhattan Beach and Marine Park; directed tennis programs at camps Tyler Hill and Kutsher’s Sports Academy for nine years; worked for the New York Junior Tennis League teaching in schoolyards; conducted mini tennis camps at Camp Seneca Lake owned by former Yeshiva University basketball great Irv Bader, Camp Raleigh run by Yeshiva basketball star Shelly Rocheach, Trails End owned by former Lafayette HS basketball star Gary Goldberg, who produced and wrote TV’s Family Ties, Brooklyn Bridge, and Spin City, at Camp Indian Head owned and directed by Sid Finkelstein and gave clinics to New York City Physical Educators.

The third most important decision I made was to live no more than ten minutes by car from our work. For years, Rachelle encountered no traffic lights in her half-mile ride to Kingsborough Community College, and I drove five miles to South Shore and Midwood HS. Most of our friends moved out of Brooklyn, buying homes in Freehold, New Jersey, Staten Island, or Long Island.

Rachelle and I lived our entire lives until we married in the New York City housing projects. For the first ten years, I lived in North Brooklyn in the Fort Green housing projects, the next sixteen years in the Sheepshead Bay housing projects, South Brooklyn. Rachelle, after living several years in the ex-army and coast guard barracks of Manhattan Beach, which became the site of her Kingsborough College job, attended PS 195, the same school that my sons Howard and Robert attended, moved to the Glenwood housing projects where she lived until 1971, approximately seventeen years. Both Rachelle and I agree that the projects were wonderful places to grow up. We never had to leave the block playing ball games, group games like steal the white flag, ring-a-levio, red light-green light, Johnny on the pony, pinochle, marbles, skelly (bottle caps with wax inside), punchball with a Spalding or soft white pimple ball, all kinds of stickball games (using a chalk box on a handball court, with a catcher’s mitt, hitting a ball on a bounce, on a fly or a ball pitched to you, catch a flies up, bench, stoop or box ball games, paddle tennis against a handball court, basketball, baseball, football, softball, roller-skate hockey, chess, checkers, dodgeball, nok hockey, flipping and trading baseball cards. In the wintertime, the parks department would flood the softball field for ice skating. If the weather was very cold the water would freeze, but by the third day, the ice was usually broken. Nothing was organized by adults, except our sixth grade softball team had Mike Rosenberg’s father collected 10 cents a week for a hat and letters which were sewn or ironed onto a white T-shirt with the name Cobras, plus a number on back of the T-shirt. We played other schools and played a fifth and sixth grade basketball game against PS 194 when Sy Ginsberg and Barry Cohen, my future teammates at Sheepshead Bay HS, came to PS 206 for an after-school game. I don’t think either team scored more than ten points. I received a street education. I was outside my house all day at five years old with no adult supervision, with more than twenty other boys my age playing ball games and learning survival and social skills. I survived by picking up soda cans and glass bottles, redeeming these 2¢ items for a pickle, Yankee Doodles, ice cream, or drinks. We might not come home for lunch but always had dinner at home, ate quickly, and returned to play until dark. At night, we would play card games on a bench under a light, listening to the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees, or New York Giants baseball games. Living in the projects carried a stigma, but only when we moved to the Sheepshead Bay houses where we played with or visited friends’ private homes surrounding the projects. A wealthy project family had a car and were fortunate to leave the city during the summer for a week or two to the Catskill Mountains—a town where the population reached over one million in the summer and numbered more than 1,000 hotels and bungalow colonies.

When former president Regina Peruggi asked several faculty members what is the best thing about Kingsborough Community College, Rachelle replied, It is only one traffic light away from my house, there used to be none. After teaching eleven years as a professor in the Health and Physical Education Department, six years cheerleading coach, two years tennis coach, ten years intramural director where 200 to 300 faculty and students showed up on Fridays from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Rachelle became assistant director for ten years under Stewart Suss, then became director of the collaborative program named College Now for fifteen years. KCC teachers complained that students were coming to college lacking basic reading, writing, and math skills. Leon M. Goldstein, KCC president for twenty-five years, instituted a remedial program taught by high school teachers before or after school, selected as adjuncts by the KCC faculty with adjunct pay to teach classes. Students in their high school junior year took math, writing, and reading skill assessment tests. If they failed the test, they were given remediation classes. If they passed the exams, they were given college courses for credit, accepted at most colleges. This program cost the students no money, was as valuable as advanced placement college courses. Dr. Suss was the director for ten years before moving on to become a dean, and vice president. College Now was so successful educating and reaching over 175,000 NY City High School students, all City University colleges adopted it.

Rachelle retired in 2007 and was the director of KCC’s honors program, placing honor students in Columbia, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Vassar, McCauley’s honors program in CUNY, Wellesley and other excellent colleges around the country. In 2014 Rachelle was inducted into Kingsborough’s first athletic Hall of Fame.

My children, twins Howard and Robert, grew up with all four grandparents and five of seven great-grandparents living within five miles. We needed the help. My sons had another set of grandparents, Ann and Ben Greenspan, who lived upstairs in our legal two-family house for twenty-five years, and Ethel Adler, a school aide at South Shore HS, who worked at South Shore HS from the time the school opened until the NYC Department of Education made eight schools with eight principals and almost no chairpeople (heads of departments). Ben Greenspan died at age 86, Ann Greenspan would move to Florida, where she died at age 93, and Ethel Adler, after living with us ten years left at age 86 and died at 88. Robert and Howard also grew up with tenants Len Roitman, assistant USA Olympic and World Cup soccer coach, four-time soccer player and coach in the Maccabi games for the USA, soccer coach and AD at Brooklyn College, and Peter Abby, my doubles tennis partner, baseball and basketball player for Midwood HS and Hobart. Grandma Lena Miller lived to 101, Poppy Sol her husband 96, Aunt Evelyn 93, her husband Uncle Irving Silverman 92. My mom Goldie lived independently until age 96 and Rachelle’s mom Florence passed away in Delray Beach, age 88. My dad Jack Goldsmith died at 68. Leonard Clare, Rachelle’s father, died at 86, Grandma Gussie Goldsmith at 88, Sam Clare at 82, and Lillian Clare 80.

Who am I?

I was a project kid. I am confident, persistent, talkative, caring, sensitive, generous, highly energetic, sincere, dedicated, honest, aggressive, ethical, not shy, knowledgeable, constantly learning, a reader, upset when people do not do the right thing, controlling, questioner, thinker, helpful, experienced, traveler, athletic, spiritual, concerned, happy, colorful, appreciative, possess an attitude of gratitude, a dreamer, idealist, sarcastic at times, sociable, educator and coach forever. I believe in justice, a kid from the ’50s, a good father, a good husband, passionate, philosophy WHIT (whatever it takes without hurting anyone), love restaurants, movies, museums, and always try to do my best: a winner.

I was a virgin at marriage, never cheated on Rachelle, never smoked cigarettes or marijuana, hardly ever drink beer, alcohol, occasionally a glass of wine, prefer Manischewitz on the Sabbath, Sangria and an occasional Bailey’s Irish Cream (chocolate milk) at weddings. I’ve been drunk twice, the first time at age 15 at my cousin Paul Goldsmith’s bar mitzvah, drinking orange juice screwdrivers, and once on beer at Phi Epsilon Pi, my Brooklyn College fraternity’s house party. I love movies, especially documentaries, attend Broadway shows, dance performances at the Brooklyn Academy Music (BAM), Lincoln Center, the Joyce Theater, love traveling and athletics, especially tennis. I am most proud that I made varsity basketball at Sheepshead Bay HS my sophomore year, a school of 4,000 and never owned a leather basketball. Ike Kresky, the park man of Dolgin Park, always gave us a leather basketball or the rich kids from the private homes came with a real basketball. Having your own ball was considered rich. One of those rich kids, Charlie Brown and his brother, came to the park to play basketball from 29th St. Dr. Charlie Brown, former wrestling coach at LIU, Hunter, and Hunter’s Physical Education and Athletic Director, has been dept. chairperson and athletic director of the University of Maryland Baltimore County Campus (UMBC) for more than twenty-five years, the same school I started the men’s basketball team in 1966. He built beautiful facilities for a school enrolling 30,000 students. I went to UMBC with Dr. Jerry Zuckerman of Brooklyn College, who earned his doctorate degree in physiology, researching the knee, testing mice living in our apartment. Jerry become a professor at Queensborough C.C., owned seven Cardio-Fitness Centers attached to corporate America, sold the business to Heinz, and spent the last twenty years buying and selling sports memorabilia. When we interviewed for assistantships to teach twelve hours at UMBC and attain our masters at night at College Park, Jerry was smart enough to purchase two tickets to the 1966 NCAA Final Four Basketball Championship, a game that changed basketball.

In the NCAA 1966 Final Four held at the University of Maryland’s Cole Field House, Duke with Jeff Mullins, Utah University with Jerry Chambers, the University of Kentucky with coach Adolph Rupp and junior Pat Riley, and Texas Western, a black starting team coached by Don Haskins, with Willie Worsley, Willie Cager, Nevel Shed, Bobby Joe Hill, and David Lattin would defeat the all-white Kentucky team, changing the culture and structure of Southern and Northern college basketball. When I watched the movie of the Texas Western game, Glory Road, I do not remember the game being close or exciting. I remember Texas Western leading most of the game by ten or more points and Kentucky never making a run for the lead.

I believe this generation has so much but so little, my generation had so little but so much. We shoveled basketball courts the day after it snowed. We played on courts that had ice on the sides, and many times banged our heads and bodies into the pole supporting the basket. Once a year, I took my boys to a New York Knicks game where they gave out leather basketballs to each youngster who attended the game. We live across the street from the Manhattan Beach basketball courts, where I grew up playing almost every day in the summer. My boys almost never went to play basketball at the park on their own. The family across the street has a basketball court with an adjustable backboard that raises and lowers. I don’t know how these kids expect to improve playing with the same friends all the time.

This generation, with many exceptions, does not appreciate what it has. This generation, besides being called the generation of obesity, has also been called the generation of entitlement, always wanting more, bigger, better, tiring or bored of what they have. Little seems to please them or make them happy, often leading to unhappiness, boredom, unhappy marriages, divorces, depressions, and suicides. They have been spoiled by parents, politicians, grandparents, and teachers. Even if they have happiness, it doesn’t last long. Our generation had much more of an attitude of gratitude and appreciation of what they had.

I have stood on the shoulders of giants, incredible professionals, caring, competent teachers, coaches, friends, mentors and advisors. Basketball coaches like Bernie Red Sarachek, a professional basketball coach for the Scranton Minors in 1947 and 1948. Eddie Gottlieb of Philadelphia and Haskel Cohen the NBA publicist kept Red out of the NBA. Red became the athletic director and basketball coach for more than thirty years at Yeshiva University. He coached Red Holzman and Norm Drucker, director of NBA officials, for the Workman Circle basketball team. Holzman became the Knicks coach who taught Sarachek’s triangle motion offense to Phil Jackson of the Knicks. Red Sarachek was recognized as the coaches’ coach. Almost every Catholic school basketball coach and any dedicated PSAL basketball coach would find time to watch Red work or invited Red to their practices to work with their team. Coaches were educated either at Circle Athletic sporting goods on Franklin Ave. in Crown Heights which he co-owned with Lou Eisenstein, one of the top college officials in the country, or at the Lou Carnesecca—Red Sarachek Alamar Basketball Camp in Stormville, New York. Red and Lou Carnesecca spoke to each other every day. Red would coach many St. John’s practices, Xaverian’s practices with Chris Mullen, who continued to visit Red in Deerfield Beach, Florida, or at Power Memorial, where Red practiced with Yeshiva after Lew Alcindor, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar finished practicing under coach Jack Donohue. I worked for Red two summers at Camp Alamar, sleep away summer camp, teaching basketball with his star Sam Stern, and played camp games for Red as my coach learning the triangle and two offense.

Coach Tony Russo, my 27-year-old guidance counselor at Sheepshead Bay HS, my JV and assistant basketball coach and two-year baseball coach at Sheepshead, having been a pitcher in the minor leagues in the Detroit Tigers farm system, treated us like professionals. Good-looking Tony met and married Carmen Varella at Hunter College, where Tony is in the Hunter College Hall of Fame for soccer, basketball, and baseball. Carmen would become a business chairperson, principal of Morris HS, Director of High Schools in NYC, assistant superintendent of Broward County, Florida, and superintendent or chancellor of the Baltimore, Maryland school system, eventually working for educational foundations, as a consultant. Tony would challenge St. John’s for NYC area baseball supremacy, leading LIU baseball to the college world series, producing professional baseball players. After being LIU’s assistant basketball coach and head baseball coach Tony became the chairperson of Health, Physical Education, Dance at Kingsborough Community College, hired Rachelle for his department, and became the dean of students for twenty years. Tony and Carmen were a real power couple, bright, good-looking, politically astute, ambitious, and competent. Tony died of cancer at age fifty-five. Mark Reiner, an excellent basketball player at NYU, basketball coach of Canarsie HS, twice national HS champions, with World Free, Otis Redding, O’Neil Tarrant, and Geoff Houston, became assistant coach at Kansas State, and head basketball coach at Brooklyn College, also died of cancer around fifty-five. The last coach I’d like to mention, whom I never met, who died of cancer at forty-eight, was Jim Valvano, whose team North Carolina State won the NCAA National Title, remembered for his running around the court after Brooklyn Tech’s Lorenzo Charles tapped a missed slot at the buzzer against Houston’s Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. Those were three of the toughest men or coaches I knew. Each had a great college career as an athlete; all became successful coaches, but in my opinion could not handle the distresses of life. Tony did not have a doctorate degree and wanted to be vice president of KCC, or a major league baseball player or professional manager, watched Carmen advance to superintendent jobs. Jim Valvano was caught up in a scandal as AD and basketball coach at NC State. Pete Golenbock’s book investigated and exposed his program, which I feel caused him to become diseased.

Along the way, I played basketball three years for Bernard Kirshenbaum at Sheepshead Bay HS, three years for Al Kaplan at Brooklyn College, where I co-captained the team, Ken Kern, Fort Hamilton basketball coach for over thirty-five years, producing Bernard and Albert King, Ira Sweet 6′7″ at Shell Bank Junior HS night center open during the week and Saturday nights, another assistant coach at Sheepshead helping us in practice, and Arthur The Frog Gilbert, an ex-Korean Marine sergeant who selected forty basketball and football players from Lincoln, Tilden, Erasmus, Sheepshead, Madison, or Fort Hamilton HS to be waiters at Camp Mahopac for sixty summer days in 1959.

At Camp Alamar, I met Mike Tohn, who became a teammate playing for Red Sarachek with Sam Stern. Mike has spent over sixty years as camper, counselor and head counselor in camping—he would become my colleague at Midwood HS. I was his JV basketball and assistant coach for the 1968–69 season. I became the head coach the next year at age twenty-five. Alan Arbuse, Midwood’s football coach, is in the Hall of Fame at the U of Rhode Island and All City at Jefferson, 6′4″, 300 lbs., eventually became the athletic director and chairperson at Midwood HS. My mentor Larry Singer, soccer and swimming coach, owner of Camp Somerhill. Bill Heft the chairperson before Bob Coccodrilli the baseball coach who played minor league baseball, played baseball and basketball at Manhattan College. Bob also coached basketball at Midwood HS, producing Steve Bracey, Kilgore CC, Tulsa U, and the NBA. Howie Pike, a sprinter in the army, and Gary Kastin, member of the track team at Queens College specializing in field events, were track coaches, along with Allan Steinberg, the assistant football coach and head track coach at Midwood, played baseball and football at Temple U, Murry Eisenstadt coached tennis, produced some of the best NYC tennis players, winning the PSAL NYC tennis championship several times and Bob Selig, soccer. I took over the Midwood HS tennis team when Murry went to South Shore HS as a history teacher / tennis coach.

Bill Heft transferred to Midwood HS as chairperson from Boys High School, where Mickey Fisher created a dynasty in basketball. Lenny Wilkens, Sy Hugo Green, Marv Kessler, Jackie Jackson, Billy Burwell, Eldridge Webb, Connie Hawkins, Sam Penceal and Vaugh Harper, Syracuse, Dr. Solly Walker, and baseball/basketball player Tommy Davis (LA Dodgers). Bill was the sole owner of Camp Tyler Hill for Boys and Girls—525 campers. Starlight, Trails End, and Bryn Mawr for Girls, owned by Melanie and Herb Kutzen, a BC classmate, the site of Five Star Basketball Camp, were other outstanding summer camps in Honnesdale, Pennsylvania. At Tyler Hill, I directed the boys’ tennis program from 1983 to 1988.

Marty Lewis, chairperson of the men’s Department of Health and Physical Education at South Shore HS starting in 1971 until 1990, was one of the youngest and smartest chairpeople, going from a teacher at Boys High under Bill Heft, becoming the chairperson of health and physical education at Brandeis HS when it opened in the ’60s, and was the NYC PSAL men’s track commissioner for forty years. I worked fifteen years for Marty Lewis, loved, respected, and admired him. He had to control a wild department of high-testosterone male physical educators—from Marty Senall, the dedicated football coach who challenged me the last 100 yards whenever we would go for a run and/or beat me up in one-on-one basketball; Steve Goldman, an outstanding baseball coach and assistant football coach; Jerry Epstein, assistant football coach and ten years South Shore AD; the highly ethical, moral, knowledgeable, sincere, dedicated soccer and golf coach Jerry Cohen, also head counselor and AD at Kutsher’s Sports Academy; Bob Martin, my son’s tennis coach; Arnie Tischler, girl’s volleyball coach; Mike Auerbach a relative through marriage, fencing and women’s softball coach; Phil Zoda, a highly dedicated and successful men’s track coach; Phil Watnick, track coach for the women; and Mark Redlus, my buddy who grew up with me in the Fort Green and Sheepshead/Nostrand housing projects. Mark didn’t coach but is infamous for several classic lines: You’re not my chairperson, As long as the checks are in the mail, nothing else matters, Why am I a major (P.E.)?

And thank God for Albert Shanker, UFT president, and Michael Quill, the head of the transit authority, both went to jail for their unions and Mayor Lindsay, the liberal Republican who caused teachers to go on strike twice, 1967 for one month and for two months in 1968. The issues were community control, teachers’ tenure, teachers being fired because they were white, job security, and a fair salary in the new contract. The teachers’ strike was highly effective. More than 90 percent went on strike; schools had to be shut down. Leaders of black communities like Rhody McCoy and Lester Campbell walked with a sign: Hey there Jew boy with the yarmulke on your head, I wish you were dead. My former biology teacher Sol Lander, teaching biology in Boys High as the chairperson of biology, was beaten up in his classroom, his wallet taken by community rebels. He went straight to the Board of Education and refused to go back to Boys High. They made him a citywide supervisor of biology at 110 Livingston Street, Board of Education headquarters. During both teachers’ strikes, I played tennis every day and kept improving. Thanks to the UFT, teachers have a decent pension, social security, and medical benefits. We were treated professionally, unlike teachers today, who lose jobs when administrators close schools, work for some charter schools with principals who treat teachers unprofessionally.

The institutional memory of what it was like to be a teacher in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s was attempted to be wiped out by Mayor Bloomberg for twelve years in NYC. The Department of Education with Joel Klein, the chancellor, tried to make the teacher the scapegoat for parents whose children lack discipline, education, behave disobediently, are disrespectful and disruptive. The teacher is held responsible and accountable for the success of thirty to forty children, many who have a single parent, live in poverty, and have immigrant parents who don’t speak English.

Al Puma, a resident of Manhattan Beach whom I taught tennis in 1976, became my best friend. Al, fifteen years older, lost his son Richard, a student at Duke University. I probably became his substitute son; he also had a daughter Elise. Al hated to lose, so I advised him to start running. Al entered his first race around fifty-five, won a trophy. I didn’t believe he ran that fast—a 10k averaging 7:30 per mile. Al, a multimillionaire contractor started running races, became one of the top masters runners in his age group, designed many of the NYRRC T-shirts, inspired me to train and run with him in races, usually in Central or Prospect Park every week. Together we did seven New York City marathons, biathlons which consisted of biking and running, and triathlons, which included running, biking, and swimming. We trained in the ocean at Manhattan Beach during June, July, and August, twice climbed the Empire State Building, eighty-six flights, and raced the mile backward, where I won a trophy in my age category. We would train and walk thirty-seven flights of steps at the Marriott Hotel located next to the World Trade Towers, destroyed in 9/11/2001. We watched the construction of the freedom tower when we reached the top. Nothing I have ever done, including sex, is more strenuous. Wearing Polar heart monitors, we found our pulses reached maximum after five flights.

I am a competitive tennis player, earning USTA Eastern rankings in men’s 55, 60, 65’s, attaining USTA National rankings in singles and doubles. I’ve taken lessons from Bob Litwin, number one in the 50s in the world on grass and 2013 Maccabi Masters coach and gold medalist in Israel; Dr. Ron Rebhuhn, a USPTA master professional; Dennis Van Der Meer, who started the USPTR (registry), a second tennis teachers’ certification group. Dennis is responsible for developing and teaching the graduate method of learning progressions, forming the basis of 10 and under tennis (smaller courts, lower nets, smaller rackets, and various tennis balls all bouncing differently designed for control); and Steve Ross, a member of the USTA Eastern Hall of Fame. Steve once held the number six Eastern ranking, behind Arthur Ashe, Clark Grabiner, Gene Scott, Butch Seewagen, and Herb Fitzgibbon, all top professional tennis players. My sons, Howard and Robert, took lessons from Ed Foster, USPTA professional at the municipal tennis courts in Delray Beach, Florida, where he was the head professional for more than thirty years before retiring. In Florida, my teachers are Van Winitsky, former #30 singles player and #8 doubles player in the world, a former Wimbledon and US Open Junior Grand slam champion, twice Easter Bowl champion, winner of Kalamazoo, player at UCLA, and Matt Spiegel, former #1 for George Washington U, top ETA and nationally ranked tennis player.

1991, I spent six weeks on sabbatical watching, studying, and talking to top tennis and basketball coaches at Virginia, North Carolina, and Duke. I stopped at the University of Virginia, visiting Katasha Artis, whom I coached at South Shore, red-shirted because she blew out her knee. I watched Debbie Ryan Virginia U’s women’s BB coach lose the NCAA women’s final to the U of Tenn. by one point in overtime, with a team of Dawn Staley (four-time Olympian, currently coach of the Women’s National Champion team at South Carolina), Tammy Reece, and Heidi and Heather Burge, 6′5″ twin sisters. I met Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina in his office, was his quest at a NC game against Virginia, Rick Macci in Greenleaf, Jennifer Capriati, Venus and Serena William’s coach, and Eve Ellis, the Columbia U women’s tennis coach, NYC’s Central Park head pro, USA Maccabi coach, currently in finance. I spent time observing tennis teachers Welby Van Horn at his camp at the Boca Raton Hotel, Jimmy Evert in Ft. Lauderdale, Ed Foster in Delray Beach, and Nick Saviano and Stan Smith, at Harry Hopman’s at Saddlebrook, Florida. I’ve been to basketball clinics where I was fortunate to hear Roy Williams, Bobby Knight, Jim Calhoun, Pistol Pete and Press Maravich, Lou Carnesecca, etc.

In 2009 it was an honor and privilege to be selected the US Maccabi Grand Masters tennis coach for the 18th Maccabi Games by executive director Ron Carner, his assistant Jed Margolis, and tennis Captain Sam Sporn.

I am most proud of my twin sons, Howard, who graduated in 1999 from Brandeis University, where he played numbers two to four singles, and number one doubles all four years. His senior year he was elected captain, earning Academic All-American with a 3.5 GPA, graduated cum laude, and nationally ranked 23 in Division III doubles. Howard is a doctor of podiatry, a surgeon, and works in a Manhattan office he owns with his brother Robert. Robert is a pediatric dentist in the same building, where he owns his apartment and an office off Central Park West. In 2013, Howard married Dr. Rosanna Troia, a podiatrist; all work in the office. Robert attended Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., graduated with a 3.7 GPA, made Phi Beta Kappa, was the manager of the men’s squash and tennis teams. In 1999, the men’s squash team coached by tennis and squash coach Paul Assainte won their first NCAA national championship, beating Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, their prime opponents. Trinity’s men’s squash program would go on to win the next 250-plus duel matches and 17 of the next 20 national squash championships. In 2000, Robert was selected for a job at Trinity in the development office and was Paul Assainte’s assistant coach of men’s tennis and squash teams winning the national squash championship. Robert enrolled at the U of Conn. medical and dental program, received a DMD degree, made the honor society taking courses with future MDs. Upon graduation from the U of Conn. in Farmington, Robert earned a master’s degree and did a two-year residency at UMDNJ (today Rutgers U) in Newark, New Jersey in pediatric dentistry.

Robert, born prematurely, weighed 2.14 lbs. with several physical anomalies due to a lack of space in the womb with his twin brother Howard, 3.14 lbs., had to be in the hospital two months to leave as a 5-lb. infant. Howard was in the hospital one month. Robert had two operations to fix rocker bottom arches, a dislocated hip operation that failed at six months where the anesthesia almost killed him, a hernia, and an undescended testicle repaired. In a failed hip operation by Dr. Victor Frankel and Dr. Golokowosky at Beth Israel’s Joint Disease Hospital, using the Ilizaroth method to grow thigh bone, Robert would walk with a cane, from age thirteen the rest of his life. Robert played four years of high school tennis doubles at South Shore HS, won nine matches in USTA boys ten’s tournaments going to a semifinals, ranked #20 ETA boys 10s, was a nationally ranked table tennis player studying with Dan Seemiller in Penn. and Terry Hodges in Washington, DC. He became an excellent squash player, possesses gifted hands and touch. In his pediatric dental practice, he performs magic and card tricks, gives each child an animal balloon and a gift. When my wife attended open school night, teachers would tell her Robert and Howard are kids from the ’50s. They worked hard, attained excellent grades, didn’t smoke, drink, date, and played sports.

Along this incredible journey, I have met incredible academic professionals, athletic coaches, and athletic tennis families who appear to have obtained the American dream. I have met Andy Murray, Pete Sampras, Van Winitsky, John McEnroe, Mayor Dinkens, Arthur Ashe, Mary Pierce, Gil Reyes, Ty Tucker, Peter Smith, Mats Wilander, Nick Bollettieri, Tom and Tim Gullickson, Patrick Ewing, and Dean Smith. Join me as I relate my stories and experiences with outstanding athletes and tennis families.

Special thanks to Prof. Diana Treglia, my outstanding yoga teacher, a professor at Kingsborough Community College; Prof. Michael Yousseuf, an outstanding fitness teacher at Kingsborough; Dr. Sam Scherek, chairperson for more than thirty years and my assistant tennis coach; Dr. Ron Gerwin, former AD, who hired me as a tennis coach in 1983; Dr. Don Hume, current chairperson who has a love of tennis, an outstanding tennis player, my park co-owner tennis concession and assistant coach Lev Mardekayev, who played at KCC two years, 1996 and 1997 (at age forty-five, Lev lost no seasonal matches, won two rounds at the NJCAA championship in Texas, jumping and yelling, I feel young again); Prof. Lou Shore, longtime KCC baseball coach who played under Tony Russo at LIU, plays full court basketball every Saturday with a hip replacement; and Barbara Poris, an adjunct retiree teacher from South Shore HS who teaches aerobics. I must give thanks to Cathy Dachtera, the former assistant AD and business manager; KCC’s cage staff David Lawson, Vito Francauilla, and Walter Hanuley for their help every day; and all the KCC athletic directors I worked under: Gina Kranwinkle, Mike Abousselman, Ron Gerwin, Kerri McTerrnan, Damani Thomas, Dr. Sam Scherek, etc.

GIANTS WHOSE SHOULDERS I’VE STOOD UPON

George Basco: USPTA Master Professional, and Hall of Fame member, past president of the Eastern and National USPTA, master tester, certified me to be a USPTA master professional. George, a former physical education teacher in NJ, the tennis teacher’s teacher, high school administrator, coached WTA tennis professional Pam Casale Telford.

Ron Carner: Lawyer, executive director of the US Maccabi Organization, Basketball player at Brandeis University, inducted into the Madison HS and Jewish Sports Halls of Fame for achievement.

Florence Clare: My mother-in-law, a school secretary at PS 181 in Brooklyn for twenty-five years. Other than her daughter, my wife Rachelle, the nicest person I’ve known. Thank you for raising Rachelle to be an outstanding person. Deceased.

Leonard Clare: My father-in-law, a one-of-a-kind father. Four years a WWII paratrooper, corporal in the 82nd airborne, received a Purple Heart, president of the Motion Picture Operators Union, gifted hands as an artist, painter of Ukrainian Easter eggs and toy soldiers of museum quality, painted, performed magic and card tricks, gardenar, chef, restaurant patron, kite flyer, pool player, bodybuilder with the Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, at Julie Levine’s Ave. U gym, stamp and book collector, ballroom dancer, museum visitor, antique collector, possessed room presence, joke teller, etc. Deceased.

Frank Cascino: My wife Rachelle’s house husband, our handyman, who did roofs, floors, walls, cement, painting, plumbing, and electrical work, blessed with gifted hands.

Jerry Cohen: South Shore HS athletic director, extraordinary successful soccer coach, basketball and soccer referee, AD and head counselor at Kutsher’s Sports Academy for over fifteen years. One of the most honest, ethical, dedicated, competent educators I have known. Super family and wife Toby, was an outstanding math teacher for my sons.

Tony DiNome: Played baseball and basketball for Lou Carnesecca at St. Ann’s HS in Manhattan which became Archbishop Molloy, played baseball for St. John’s U, Xavier U, and in the minor leagues. Coached Christ the King, Syosset HS men’s basketball and an assistant basketball coach at CW Post. A co-worker at the US Open, Tony become my supervisor when Harold Becker left, then became the South Gate security supervisor for three years—an excellent golfer, a very good tennis player, who made every day at the US Open a joy.

Dr. Leonard M. Giaradi: Cornell Weill Medical College—New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Cardiothoracic surgeon. Father was a mechanic, a Harvard U graduate, repaired my aortic aneurysm and my aortic valve, allowing me to be active for the last nine years. Thank you for a great hospital, great staff, super surgeon.

Arthur Frog Gilbert: Business educator, ex-Marine sergeant from the Korean War, assistant football coach at Madison and Lincoln HS, counselor for forty waiter/athletes selected by him for Camp Mahopac. Presently married, two children, at least five grandchildren, an Orthodox Jew who worked at Stan Felsinger’s Camp Monroe.

Goldie Goldsmith: My 96-year-old mother, bright, independent, attended the Senior Center by accessory ride, a great cook, her mind sharp, could thread a needle without eyeglasses but almost 100 percent loss of hearing. Cub Scout den mother, Boy Scout assistant leader, PTA leader of PS 20 in Fort Green, worked as a teacher’s aide at Midwood HS and received a pension as a city clerk for New York City. She possessed a heart of gold. Deceased.

Jack Goldsmith: Father, hardest working person I knew. Could work up to twenty hours a day driving a chicken truck, picking up chickens at farms, transporting them to Williamsburg, to a live chicken market located at Roebling St. and delivered orders for kosher butchers to homes. Deceased.

Dr. Howard Goldsmith: Son, podiatrist, Zeist kite, possesses a sweet heart.

Dr. Robert Goldsmith: Pediatric dentist, Toughest kid I ever knew. Alpha dog.

Dr. Rachelle Goldsmith: My wife, physical educator, tennis coach, intramural director, cheerleading coach fifteen years, College Now asst. director and director twenty five years, ten years director of Kingsborough’s honors program. KCC Athletic Hall of Fame.

Bill Heft: Chairperson at Boys High and Midwood HS who made track coach Doug Terry, basketball coaches Mickey Fisher and Howie Jones wear bow ties every day while teaching physical education. Owner of Camp Tyler Hill for Boys and Girls, the camp you wanted to send your child because you knew they would be in a safe, competent environment with Bill Heft in charge. Deceased.

Milton Kashefsky: My neighbor in the Ft. Green Housing Projects, his sister Beverly was my babysitter. Played basketball for Boys High, taught me to throw, catch, and punch a ball.

Al Kaplan: My Brooklyn College basketball coach three years. An excellent practice coach and teacher, an outstanding member of the 49-50 basketball team with Joe Post a principal, went to the ECAC semifinals in Kansas City. Fort Hamilton girls’ basketball coach with Jean Balukas, the best woman pool player in the country. Real gentleman. Deceased.

Marty Lewis: Chairperson at South Shore HS for twenty years, NYC PSAL men’s track commissioner for forty years, USA track official, very knowledgeable, bright, the teacher’s teacher. Deceased.

Kathy Listner: My US Open guest services and facilities operations director of the outdoor tennis courts for twenty-three years. Has worked at the US Open for thirty-six years. A Bronx HS of Science graduate, currently a junior high science teacher.

Al Puma: My best male friend from 1972 to 2010. Mentor, financial advisor, wealthy contractor for NYC construction projects, my co-trainer in preparing for races, co-runner in marathons, bi- and triathlons, swimming in Manhattan Beach in the summer, trained and pushed each other thirty-seven flights of steps in the downtown Marriott Hotel. Deceased.

Sam Sporn: Lawyer, USTA Eastern Division #1 ranked in men’s singles, participated in more than ten Maccabi Israeli and Pan American events, winner of more than twenty medals in singles and doubles in his age groups, and presented with the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame Chairpersons’ Leadership award at the 2013 Maccabi games at the Wingate Gymnasium in Israel. Contributed an extraordinary gift of $1,000,000 to the US Maccabi organization.

Anthony Robbins: 6′7″, the best teacher and motivational speaker I have ever listened to and observed. I’ve spent more than ten days attending his seminars. Energy, excitement, enthusiasm. He will transform your life.

Dr. Ron Rebhuhn: Philosophy professor and college tennis coach at Mercy College, holder of many singles and doubles USTA Eastern and National tennis titles in his age group, USPTA Master Professional, for twenty-five years ran the USTA Eastern Senior and Open men’s singles and doubles tournaments. My former teacher, who taught me how to practice strokes alone. Father of Eric, St. John’s men’s tennis coach. Ron played for the U of Florida with Bill Tym. A photographic memory and one of the most knowledgeable tennis teachers I have known. Died of ALS.

Dean Anthony Tony Russo: My Sheepshead Bay HS PE teacher and guidance counselor, JV basketball coach, assistant varsity coach, two years my baseball coach. A member of the Detroit Tigers minor league baseball system,