After 26 years as basketball head coach at Fairleigh Dickinson University, following tours as an assistant at Tulane and Syracuse, Tom Green approached his new post at The City College of New York armed with long-range goals. It would be tough at the outset, but he would start implementing the new age at practice.
After weeding his team down to 13 players for 2011-12, Green approached those early practices at Nat Holman Gym on the Harlem campus, often finding eight or nine guys. And those were the good days. His phone usually buzzed with text messages.
“Coach, I gotta work today. My boss wants me to do an extra shift.”
“Coach, I gotta watch my little brother. My mom’s getting home late from work.”
You know, all the stuff John Calipari never hears at Kentucky.
Welcome to Division III basketball, Coach Green.
“The first year, we were like intramurals with uniforms,” said Green, who this past season directed CCNY to its first non-losing record in 13 years, the second in 31 years. “We were very, very bad. The program was at rock bottom.”
CCNY once upon a very long time ago, was the program in college basketball. The 1949-50 CCNY team won both the NCAA and NIT championships. Then New York basketball’s worst nightmare followed, the 1951 point shaving scandal. CCNY eventually dropped to Division III and essentially, dropped off the basketball map.
There were mild successes, like two winning seasons three years apart in the late ’70s. The 2002-03 team went 17-12, the first winning mark in nearly two decades. But overall, men’s basketball was a wasteland. In August 2011, CCNY turned to Green. Give me time, he implored.
“I told the committee that hired me, ‘This first year is not going to count on my mental overall record,’ ” Green said, explaining he arrived too late to recruit. “I told them, ‘If you’re looking for a quick fix, I’m not your guy. After this first year I’m looking at a four-year plan.’ My fourth year to me was the season just finished.”
Despite the hardships every D-III school faces, notably the lack of athletic scholarships, CCNY fashioned a 13-12 regular season record before losing its CUNY Conference Tournament opener. The gnawing part? Seven of the losses were by five points or less, two of those by two points and two others by one. Six points stood between 17-9 and 13-13.
“And 17-9 has a whole different ring to it than 13-13,” Green said.
So 13-13 may sound mediocre, but a .500 record is something to cherish. Ask the Knicks and Nets.
The future looms positive under Green, labeled “a good, solid, old-school basketball man,” by one veteran NBA executive. CCNY returns four of five starters: converted point guard Khalil Hamer from Manhattan Center for Science and Math; Mark Richards from Bergen Catholic (N.J.) High; David Solano out of Eastchester High; and Robbie Dionisio from Longwood High on Long Island.
Hamer led the conference in assists as a junior. Solano, as a soph, was second by fractions in 3-point shooting. Richards, headed to his senior year, was the youngest player in a Rockland County adult league before being coaxed back to school. Dionisio, Green said, was the team’s most improved player as a junior wing.
Basically, the school draws from the city although Green has expanded his recruiting, if Westchester/Rockland and Long Island are considered expansion. He had to. When he recruited Hamer, he brought in some 25 city kids. All but three were academically ineligible.
“Definitely, we’re proud of what we’ve done,” said Hamer, an Academic Honor Roll guy who grew up on 145th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue near the school, wanted to stay close to home and was impressed by Green’s personality. “It has been a while since we had a season like that so it means a lot.
“We had some nail-biters,” Hamer said. “Those are the toughest games to lose. There are so many things that can go wrong in games like that, from simple mistakes to a single possession. Those are the types of games we have to go back and look at to limit those same mistakes.”
In CCNY, Solano found what he wanted. Green’s resume was an attraction, but the 6-foot-2 shooting guard loved the idea of playing in the city. Equally appealing was the chance to build from the ground up. In this case, from below ground up.
“With the recent history, this season meant a lot,” Solano said. “We built chemistry. It took a lot of hard work to get where we’re at, but it felt really good. I’m proud where the program has gone. Honestly, the way the program was when I came in drew me in because I wanted to bring change to a program.
“I had options, but ultimately it came down to CCNY. I loved the idea of going to school and playing basketball in the greatest city in the world,” Solano said. “CCNY has the deepest roots of history in college basketball in New York. We play for that pride. We represent CCNY and the students that go there. The school has great diversity, one of its greatest parts.”
Green’s four-year plan instituted in 2011 (first year doesn’t count, remember?) appears to have taken hold. March Madness looms for the nation, but on an 11-block campus starting on W. 130th St., basketball is about the future.
“The first couple years, practice was over and I was kind of glad. There was nothing to look forward to,” Green said. “When it was over this year, I had a sense of pride in what we had done. I realized how close we were to turning the corner. I’m very excited about our team and what we can accomplish. I’m so looking forward to next year.”
It has been a while since anyone said that at CCNY.