Scholastic Roundup: It’s time for the basketball old-timers

May 3, 2024 Andy Furman

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The Basketball Old Timers of America will conduct their 63rd induction ceremony on Friday evening (May 3) at Sirico’s in Dyker Heights.

This year’s inductees were Felipe Lopez, Jim Larranaga, Anucha Browne and Mike Vaccaro.

Lopez attended Rice High School, was selected as New York State Mr. Basketball, and named a McDonald’s All-American — and took home MVP honors at the 1994 McDonald’s All-American Game. He scored 24 points among a group that included future collegiate standouts and NBA pros including Antoine Walker, Raef LaFrentz and Trajan Langdon.

Lopez finished his collegiate career at St. John’s University with 1,927 points, placing him fourth all-time in school history behind Chris Mullin, Malik Sealy and D’Angelo Harrison.

Following his senior season at St. John’s, Lopez was selected by the San Antonio Spurs with the 24th overall pick in the 1998 NBA Draft. He is one of just 17 players in St. John’s history to be selected in the first round of the NBA Draft.

Lopez played two full seasons with the Vancouver Grizzlies — after he was traded by San Antonio for point guard Antonio Daniels. He spent his final two seasons in the league with the Washington Wizards and Minnesota Timberwolves.

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Anucha Browne serves as the chief impact officer for Tides, a well-known foundation. In this role, she oversees the strategy and impact department, which moves money and builds power for fiscally sponsored partners through Tides Center and works to strengthen Tides Network overall.

As a student-athlete at Northwestern, Browne was the Wildcats’ first All-American women’s basketball player and set 24 school records. She was named NU’s women’s basketball player of the decade in 1992 and was also inducted into the Northwestern Hall of Fame in 1993.

During her senior season, she became the first woman in NCAA history to tally six straight 30-plus point performances and led the nation in scoring (30.5 points per game). She was hired in 2000 by Madison Square Garden where she served as the New York Knicks’ SVP of marketing and business operations.

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Jim Larranaga has won 745 games as a coach over 40 seasons. At the conclusion of the 2023-24 season, Larranaga ranked No. 7 on the NCAA list of winningest active Division 1 coaches and No. 28 on the NCAA list of all-time winningest coaches.

He is the only coach in NCAA history with 100-plus conference wins at three Division 1 schools and/or in three Division 1 leagues. At the University of Miami, he has led the Hurricanes to six NCAA Tournament appearances, including four trips to the Sweet 16. He guided Miami to its first Elite Eight (2022) and first Final Four (2023) and is the winningest coach in program history – with five 25-win seasons. Larranaga came to Miami after serving as the head coach at George Mason for 14 seasons. He previously served as the head coach at Bowling Green for 11 seasons (1976-1997) and at Division II American International for two seasons (1977-79).

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Mike Vaccaro has been the lead sports columnist for the New York Post since November 2002. Since the start of his career — 1989 — he has won more than 50 writing awards serving the Olean (N.Y.) Times Herald, the New Jersey Star-Ledger, the Kansas City Star and the Times Herald-Record of Middletown, N.Y.

He is the author of “Emperors and Idiots; The Hundred Year Rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox From the Very Beginning to the End of the Curse” and “1941: The Greatest Year in Sports.”

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John O’Boyle, Ed Bass, Ed Mulholland and Joe McManus were the men responsible for the formation of the Basketball Old Timers of America. The first induction ceremony was held in 1959, when William “Pop” Gates was the lone honoree. He was first of 228 to be so honored.

The group is under the direction of President Ray Nash and Dennis McDermott. Of the 228 to have been honored, 29 have also been enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. From coaching icons of the game like Lou Carnesecca, Joe Lapchick, Nat Holman, Red Holzman, Frank McGuire and Jay Wright, to star players such as Dick McGuire, Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere and Chris Mullin, as well as referee Dick Bavetta, the two institutions have 29 names in common.

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New Utrecht High School Radio Bingo took place on Saturday (May 4) and was open to all Utrecht students’ parents and staff. It was advertised as an evening with music, food, and fun. It took place from 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Trio Production DJ played music.

Utrecht football coach Wendell Fervine reports that on Saturday, May 11, the Utes will stage their annual NUHS Football Alumni Career Day.

“Football is taxing, intense, and endlessly rewarding,” he writes. “There are false narratives being perpetuated by society about the game’s value, reducing the sport to a treasure hunt in the eyes of our youth.

“As elders,” he continues, “It’s not good enough to just experience the game’s value in adulthood. We have to be ambassadors of the game and articulate its value to our youth. We are missionaries.”

Fervine says the Green and White will be practicing from 9 a.m. to noon and will have a meet-and-greet from noon to 1 p.m. “The pillars of our program are Resilience, Attitude, Accountability, Competition and Discipline,” he said.

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Who knew? Ken Holtzman, the winningest Jewish pitcher in baseball history, died last month at 78. He threw two no-hitters, won four World Series rings and beat Sandy Koufax head to head once across 15 seasons in the 1960s and 1970s.

On September 25, 1966, in Koufax’s penultimate regular season start, the two lefties faced off in what the Jewish Baseball Museum considers to be the first-ever matchup between two Jewish starting pitchers — it’s only happened five times; Holtzman was involved in three of them.

Both pitchers threw complete games, and both had only one earned run. However, the Cubs scored another earned run, giving Holtzman the win over Koufax that day. Holtzman was the last pitcher to beat the Lafayette High graduate and baseball Hall of Famer during the regular season. Holtzman, who retired after the 1979 season, would end his career with 174 wins, nine more than Koufax. He also racked up 1,601 strikeouts, second to Koufax (2,396) among Jewish pitchers, and a 3.49 ERA.

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Brooklyn’s Howard Arlen Schwab, who was known as the expert on ESPN’s “Stump the Schwab,” passed away at 63, in Aventura, Fla. last week.

He had been at ESPN for 17 years as a researcher and producer and in 2004 was tabbed to star in his own show. Stuwart Scott, then the host, would select three challengers to outdo Schwab in sports trivia questions.

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