Sports Brooklyn Boro

Ken Lam made the most of a second chance

July 19, 2021 Andy Furman
Ken Lam. Photo courtesy of Andy Furman
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Basketball.

Some call it a sport.

For others it’s recreation.

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And for most of us – as fans – it’s merely a stress release while watching our favorite team.

Yet for Ken Lam, basketball proved to be a lifesaver.

“I don’t know where I’d be today without the sport,” said Lam, who turned 74 years old on the 27th of June. “I owe everything to basketball, and my older brother (Hank) who opened the door for me.”

The Sheepshead Bay High grad never played basketball in high school. “The closest I came was a tryout,” he told the Eagle the other day.

This is how close he came to playing basketball in high school.

“My high school physical education teacher (Bernie Kirshenbaum) was also the school basketball coach,” he said, “and he asked me to try-out for the team. I was about 6-2 at the time, and played mostly in the rec center leagues.”

So, when tryout day came, Ken Lam went to the locker room, got his gear and dressed, “and then I just turned around and went home,” he remembered.

“I just thought I was never good enough,” he said.

Well, he was half-right. He certainly wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar in the classroom.

“I never missed a class, and I never got in trouble,” said the kid who grew up on East 22nd Street, “but school work and me just never meshed.”

So, it was off to work in Manhattan after high school, which he said he hated.

Enter big brother Hank.

“My brother was a pretty good basketball player at Staten Island Community College,” the younger Lam said, “and he convinced then coach Ira Sweet to take a chance on me.”

It wasn’t a chance – it was more like a winning lottery ticket.

Lam says the trip from Brooklyn to the Island was a snap. “I’d get on Coney Island Avenue,” he said, “cross the (Verrazano) Bridge for then 50 cents and I was on campus in about 20 minutes.”

 

Lam’s basketball career started on the Island when he was 20 – in 1968. In his freshman year Lam shattered three school records, amassing 577 points for an average of 27.5 points-per-game along with 426 rebounds –an amazing 20.3 per-game mark. That Dolphins team was growing – they finished 10-11 and Lam earned a Metro Community College Athletic Conference All-Star selection, and NCAA Division I suiters were calling.

“I was recruited by The George Washington University after my freshman season,” he recalled, “but I decided to stay at Staten Island. I figured I only had one year of organized ball in me.”

After his second year on the Island Lam broke the school’s all-time career scoring and rebounding record – not bad for a kid who was now only 6-3. He led the team to a 16-6 record and a berth into the National Junior College Region XV Tournament.

He finished with 547 points – a 24.9 per-game average – and broke his own record with another 435 rebounds, finishing his two-year career with 1,124 points and 861 rebounds.

In 1970 he was elected to the Staten Island Community College Hall of Fame.

He was a basketball talent, and his academics had improved.

And Lou Rossini, the famed NYU basketball coach came calling – and Kan Lam answered.

NYU –The Violets – big time basketball. Home court – the World’s Most Famous Arena – Madison Square Garden. And it was Ken Lam’s stage – at least for three games.

“I broke my foot after the third game,” he said, “and NYU dropped the sport after a 5-20 season.

“I thought of finishing up at NYU, and getting my degree, but Les Yellin would hound me daily,” he said.

Les Yellin was the basketball coach for the Terriers of St. Francis College, who just so happened to live nearby Lam. His persistence worked. Lam became a Terrier.

And if people thought the Junior College stats were a fluke, Lam was doing it again for the Terriers against the likes of Manhattan, Seton Hall, Providence and St. Bonaventure.

He played one season – his senior year – and broke the still-standing St. Francis record for field-goals in a season with 256, good for 605 points, a 23.3 per-game average. He finished shooting 52% from the field and collected 206 rebounds – good for just under nine-per-game, and giving him over 1,000 for his combined career.

In fact, the last St. Francis College basketball player to average 20-plus points a game in a single-season was Steven Howard – he averaged 20.2 points-per-game in 2000-01. Ray Minlend averaged 24.3 per-game during the 1998-99 season, and Lam’s teammate – Dennis McDermott holds the school record with 1,578 points in 74 games for a lifetime 21.3 per-game average.

But more than numbers – Ken Lam, the kid who lacked confidence to try-out for his high school team – earned a college degree.

Basketball lived on for a few more years for Ken Lam.

Dan Lynch, the former baseball coach at St. Francis, was coaching a basketball team in Caracas. “Ken was our best player,” Lynch told the Staten Island Advance, several years ago.

Lam said it was a great experience and later entered the teaching profession. “I retired some 17 years ago from James Madison High School where I taught Accounting and Business subjects.”

Today, he says he’ll shoot around but an Achilles injury did him in. “I played until I was about 50,” he said, “and my weight today is the same as when I played.”

Ken Lam, the kid who seemed to be “allergic” to a classroom, found himself in one for more than half his life.

But the basketball memories he created will last forever.

Andy Furman is a Fox Sports Radio national talk show host. Previously, he was a scholastic sports columnist for the Brooklyn Eagle. He may be reached at: [email protected] Twitter: @AndyFurmanFSR


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1 Comment

  1. arthur colen

    This was a great nostalgic article about Brooklyn/NYC late 60s hoops, as are most of your other articles. I feel a shout out to John Conforti would have been appropriate. He also averaged 24.3 ppg in 1969 with 560 fgs. His three year composite was 21.4 ppg with 1,434 points. As a Bensonhurst and Brooklyn Tech (’69) product I really appreciate your work.

    July 20, 2021 at 3:06 pm
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