Brashly known as the “World’s Most Famous Arena,” Madison Square Garden has long been considered the center of the basketball universe. Of course, some say that this is East Coast bias, especially people from Kansas, Los Angeles and Indiana.

 

What better place could there for the Joe Lapchick Character Award presentation? After all, Joe Lapchick coached (St. John’s & New York Knicks) and played (the Original Celtics) in hundreds of games at Madison Square Garden.

 

Lapchick was legendary not only because of his winning records, but also because he was a man of uncommon character. And he had a remarkably positive influence on the players, assistant coaches … everyone around him, really. Part of the spirit of the Lapchick era was a commitment to social justice, the courage to stand alone against bigotry, and a sincere belief that college sport should be an integral part of education.  

 

What better coach could there be for a character award?

 

I had a great time at last year’s Lapchick Character Award event, so I was more than happy to make my way in to Manhattan for this year’s version.

 

 

 

Coaches --- good coaches at least --- dive deeper than the basic mechanics of the game. Good coaches lapse into psychology, game strategy, cleverness, motivation . . . . and the best coaches expertly delve into explorations of right and wrong, fair and unfair, respect, dignity, etc.

 

But what makes basketball coaches so special? Due to basketball’s long history and all American roots, there’s a lengthy continuum of famous teams and coaches from way way back. Unlike the other all American sports with long histories --- football and baseball --- intimate basketball arenas situated coaches and players close enough for media and fans to hear and see them upfront and personal.

 

Football fans might scoff at the idea that basketball coaches are so special. After all, college football coaches are leaders of a hundred players, not just a baker’s dozen like basketball. But, by having small, manageable groups of cagers, basketball coaches are better able to fine-tune and focus.

 

As the train neared Manhattan, my reflective ruminations continued. It occurred to me that real character --- along with its close cousins integrity, honesty, fairness, dignity, humility and honor --- is an all-the-time thing. Comporting oneself with character for just a certain period of time, or just with one group of people, is a good thing, but true character is 24/7/365.

 

And when a person of true character also has knowledge, expertise, personality and leadership abilities, and he/she coaches highly impressionable college athletes with boundless ambition, capabilities and potential, then magical and life-changing things can happen.

 

My train’s destination was Penn Central Station, which, in keeping with Manhattan’s majestic verticality, is located directly underneath Madison Square Garden (MSG), which, in turn, is located directly underneath a 50-story building.

 

 

 

I can’t remember what I did yesterday, but I can vividly remember the old MSG from forty years ago: it was dark, dank, smoky, and – no surprise – quite vertical. We sat in the last row and we were definitely looking down on the tops of the heads of the helmet-less skaters.

 

But MSG #4 is an indoor stadium by comparison, with the last rows being situated very distant from the court.   Alas, nowadays MSG #4 is considered to be, ah, long in the tooth, and a $300 million renovation is in the works.

 

 

 

The Lapchick Character Award is the brainchild of several dedicated roundball purists, especially the energetic and erudite Gus Alfieri, who has a rich basketball background himself: point guard on St. John’s 1959 NIT championship team and former coach of St. Anthony’s High School on Long Island, which had a 49-game winning streak.

 

Alfieri, author of the book LAPCHICK, and AP college basketball writer extraordinaire Jim O’Connell – in concert with Rob Livingston and Dan Sacco -- came up with the idea of a tribute to Coach Lapchick a couple years ago. They agreed on an award for character, to be presented to three coaches every year.

 

When I walked into the MSG Club Lounge, there were about a 120 or so basketball faithful milling about. John Thompson and Lou Carnesecca were right there, the centers of attention, and I pulled out my camera and snapped away (see photos below).

 

As I worked the crowd, I realized that most attendees were veterans in their 60s, 70s and 80s, former players and contemporaries of the legendary Coach Lapchick. This group was a who’s who of New York basketball from the mid-century.

 

 

 

Lapchick Character Award member Bob Livingston welcomed the crowd, and gave a brief history of how it came into being. Then he introduced Gus Alfieri, who made several appropriately profound comments about character and integrity.

 

Then Jim O’Connell introduced former St. John’s AD and baseball coach Jack Kaiser, who was presented with a special Leadership Appreciation Award. Mr. Kaiser was there for the gestation of the Big East Conference, and he had some interesting comments about St. John’s athletics in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

 

Next up to the podium was Character Award honoree Coach Jack Curran, who has won over 900 games at Archbishop Molloy High School in New York City. Coach Curran will start his 52^nd season soon.

 

Accepting the Lapchick Character Award for the recently deceased Kay Yow (coach of the North Carolina State) was Stephanie Glance. Plus there was an especially touching video about Coach Yow as part of the presentation.

 

Last year former St. John’s coach Lou Carnesecca accepted his Lapchick Award by delivering a string of one-liners, and he could have gone on forever.   No shy guy in front of a microphone, Carnesecca probably could have made a good living as a stand-up comedian if coaching did not work out.

 

This year’s most entertaining Lapchick Award honoree was definitely John Thompson, of Georgetown renown. A gifted speaker – I would describe his style as eloquent rambling – Thompson went for the yucks early, and he succeeded. Among his one-liners:

 

 

 

After warming up the audience with humor, Coach Thompson made some nice remarks about what really matters (and he wasn’t talking about wins and championships):

 

Referring to Richard Lapchick (who was in attendance) and his noteworthy efforts to affect human rights: “The things he speaks up about, he’s all alone.” Then Thompson lauded father (Joe) and son (Richard) simultaneously: “There ain’t no way in hell that you speak up like that; you gotta get it from somewhere.”

 

 

 

 

Richard gave a great example of character. He described attending legendary Grambling football coach Eddie Robinson’s funeral a couple years ago in rural Mississippi – that it was very hard to get there – but at one point during the ceremony Robinson’s former players were asked to stand. And 2,400 men stood up. How impressive is that? Over two thousand men made their way to an out of the way rural nowhere to pay their respects. 

 

I have seen Richard Lapchick speak many times, and I have observed him to be a very even-tempered fellow. Whereas most of us might wave our hands or point our fingers for emphasis, Richard’s expressions of passion and resolve are much more subtle; just a slight uptick in his voice or an imperceptibly raised eyebrow. 

 

While making the point about the continuing struggles for racial equality in America, Richard came up with a remarkable run-on sentence in which he resoundingly and melodiously strung together a two hundred word or so description of the entire mosaic of who we all are in America, without taking a breath, like it was all one word: White, African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic-American, Native American, gay, lesbian, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Religious Right, etc. etc.

 

 

On the train ride home I reflected on the themes of the day. It dawned on me that the theme here was that character is not reserved for just famous coaches. Character can be lived by any person in any position in any situation.