The typewritten newsletter dated March 22, 1966 contains scouting reports on high school basketball players. This issue thanks subscribers for their loyalty during the first year of publication during which demand doubled to 60 college coaches.

The issue is hidden inside a thick three-ring binder that is buried in the cluttered Manhattan apartment of Howie Garfinkel. Howie’s life is basketball—as a scout, a coach, a creator of a summer camp and a director of clinics.

About 70 years ago, this son of a garment worker, was a modest high school player. He could shoot a two-handed set shot but he didn’t have the moves. He admits that he didn’t work at his game. But his passion for basketball moved him in another direction. He became a compiler of information about players, and he sent this information to college coaches. He also was the originator of what has become a staple of basketball development and recruiting—the summer camp with guest coaches and showcase games.

During the mid-1960s, Howie published a magazine (High School Basketball Illustrated) that profiled players and teams in New York and northern New Jersey. An assistant coach at The Citadel obtained a copy and suggested to Howie that he open his own scouting service. He did, eventually, and he also opened the Five-Star Basketball Camp. For the second year of the camp, he hired a young Bobby Knight at $50 per day as his top instructor. The camp was pure basketball—teaching, coaching, playing and no nonsense—and it drew top schoolboy talent from around the country.

Eight years ago, Howie sold his stake in the camp. But he remains in the game he always has loved. Last year, he organized his sixth annual Clinic to End All Clinics where Division I coaches discussed strategy with coaches from other colleges and high schools. He is co-founder of the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame and he evaluates city players for the selection advisory committee of the McDonald’s All-American Game.

From an early age, Howie Garfinkel set a course for his life and happily followed it. He still types his player evaluations on an IBM typewriter. He uses his phone but will not go near the internet. He also still has his binders and the well-organized scouting reports that made him a household name in basketball long before e-mail and ESPN.

Sometimes, it is best to evaluate talent in sports (and business) the old fashioned way.

Jim

Rye’s Connor Antico figured he would follow his brothers. Play football. Be a star. Beat rival Harrison. Three Anticos preceded him and some thought Connor, the fourth of five brothers, might be the best of them all. But, faulty knees and timing led Connor in a different direction.

Connor’s fallback is singing and acting. His new career already has included two book covers, print and TV ads, singing gigs, a role on a TV show and parts in two upcoming movies. In one of the films about the untimely death of Arkansas lineman Brandon Burlsworth, Connor portrays quarterback Clint Stoerner. He spent weeks researching the role and filming, missing his prom, his graduation and his girlfriend’s graduation. You see, Connor is just 18.

Connor’s appreciation for the stage and screen was sparked by a role in Bye, Bye Birdie in middle school. He took the role after he hurt his right knee playing hockey. The next year, playing football, he was dragged down from behind and tore his left MCL. Very disappointing, but it created a new opportunity.

Connor was cast as a jock in local theater, and he rehearsed the role with his leg immobilized from the injury. With a lot of free time, singing lessons, acting classes and auditions before talent scouts filled his days. Connor never played football again, and he participated only on his school’s medal-winning crew team that practiced in the early morning hours before the school day started.

At an early stage in his life, Connor already has transitioned from the sports field to a career in entertainment. He will enroll this fall in Pace University’s performing arts program. Unlike other college programs, Pace will allow him to work professionally.

An athlete never knows when a decision, a misstep, or an injury will lead him or her in a new direction. For Connor, the lesson learned is always to be mentally prepared to move on and to grab that new opportunity with the same passion that once was reserved for beating a school’s biggest rival.

Jim

During my childhood, baseball relief pitchers didn’t dramatically thrust their uniform shirts from their pants after nailing down a save. They didn’t let out wild yells, or show-up the other team by symbolically shooting an arrow into the air.

One of the few acts of emotion that I recall involved the late Steve Hamilton. This Yankees reliever would come in around the seventh or eighth inning. When he succeeded, he just “pulled the chain.” As he walked from the mound, Hamilton extended his pitching arm in front of him, made a fist and yanked his arm back to his body as he turned over his forearm. Practically unnoticeable to fans, this gesture never caused embarrassment to his opponents.

For another Yankee relief pitcher, we now are seeing the last few days of a Hall of Fame career. For 19 years, Mariano Rivera has been a classy teammate, soft spoken and humble. He let his work ethic, and his cutter, do all the talking. Antics on the mound never have been part of his game.

With rare exceptions, Mo performed his job perfectly during exhibition games, the season, the playoffs and the World Series. With pressure high, he remained cool on the mound. He rarely showed emotion. If he failed, he accepted it and vowed to do better the next day. When a teammate failed, he was the first to provide encouragement.

This final year has been a celebration for Mo as he appears with the Yankees in ballparks around the country. He has been honored by the opposing teams, and he meets with their fans and long-time employees. He even is cheered and applauded by opposing fans as he enters games to shut down the home team.

All baseball fans appreciate a winner and this year they have celebrated the respect Mo has for his craft, for the game, for other players, for them, and for his God and his family. It is the rare athlete who can take a bow at center stage and receive good wishes from everyone.

We all can learn from the great Mariano!

Jim

Doc Edwards is a baseball lifer. He has spent 57 years in the game, and his bench is deep with stories.

Look at your baseball card collection, if mom didn’t toss it, to find a Doc Edwards card. He played with the Indians (managed them, too), Kansas City Athletics, the Yankees and the Phillies. Before and after that, he has played and managed (and traveled on the bus) with the Wichita Aeros, the Charleston Charlies, the Sioux Falls Canaries and teams in North Platte, Nebraska, and Burlington, North Carolina. He is famous in Rochester, New York, where he served as manager of the Red Wings when the team, during 1981, lost to the Pawtucket Red Sox in the longest professional baseball game (33 innings).

His stories feature just about everyone he has met in baseball from Mickey Mantle to the kid playing second base for him today—and whose name keeps slipping from memory. Doc once hit a home run in Fenway Park that barely scraped the top part of the fence while The Mick, as Doc tells it, “then…hit one to center field. One handed. More than 420 feet.”

Since his last day in the big leagues, Doc has become dedicated to teaching young players about the game, and he just loves when they are determined to pursue the nearly unachievable to become the next Mantle. Realistically, each player has a greater chance to become the next Doc Edwards. But, he prays for them and encourages them to never give up their dreams to play in the big leagues.

The rewards for all Doc’s years in baseball mostly come when one of his players successfully battles through a tough time on the field and then improves his game. But, once in a while, kudos have come his way. Doc remembered one game, in upstate New York, when hundreds of Orthodox Jews greeted him as he stepped on the field. This puzzled him, because he was never that good a ballplayer. He soon learned that when the rabbi was a kid, Doc talked to him from the Yankee Stadium bullpen, and now this was the rabbi’s way to show his gratitude.

Doc Edwards was good enough to play and manage in the major leagues. But for most of his baseball life, his role has included bumpy bus rides, cheap motels and little fanfare. Along for the ride has been the daily opportunity for Doc to guide many young players as each tries to find his position in the business of baseball.

Jim

After baseball’s spring training, David Adams, a second baseman, was released by the Yankees. Then came a roster of injuries, and Adams was resigned by the team as infield insurance. He played in the minor leagues until he was eligible for promotion to the big team during mid-May.

A chain of unusual events put Adams in the Yankee lineup at third base. Alex Rodriquez had off-season hip surgery. His replacement, Kevin Youkilis, was injured and eventually required back surgery that has disabled him for about four months. Other utility players were moved around the infield due to a disabling injury to the shortstop, Eduardo Nunez, who was keeping the position warm until the injured Derek Jeter could return from a twice broken bone.

Eventually the task at third was thrust upon Adams. His fielding was good, and his hitting started well—a .323 batting average with a couple of home runs and a handful of RBI in his first eight games. Then, things changed on the offensive side. His average plummeted to .191 and he still had two home runs and only a few more RBI after 26 games.

According to his manager, opposing teams studied him. Pitchers made adjustments on how they threw to him. Fielders were positioned to catch any ball he put in play. Adams never made the counter-adjustment, and he eventually realized the problem.

He put pressure on himself. He tried to accomplish too much and he shifted away from his strengths and what he could execute well. He realized he needed to simplify his approach to the game and again trust his plan.

The Yankees continued to juggle players as a few returned from their injuries. Adams was sent back to the minor leagues to work through his struggles.

Similar situations occur all the time in business. A company often must call upon an employee to fill a void. When that call comes, a worker must continue to make adjustments to a variety of unfamiliar conditions. A person who has confidence and can adapt well to new situations will, more often than not, remain with the top team.

Jim

During a Little League playoff game last summer, a boy with the Brewster team of Putnam County had to leave the dugout. An opponent protested his presence since he was not a roster player, and because his wheelchair created a liability issue.

Evan Sussman has had cerebral palsy since infancy. While he and the team were disappointed by the ruling, matters have turned out just fine for him and other players.

Soon after, Evan was allowed back in the dugout. He threw out the first pitch for the team’s next game. He and his teammates, and their families, received 20 tickets to a Yankees game from the local Stop & Shop supermarket, and then they received a matching donation of tickets from the Yankees.

Before the game, Evan was on the field during batting practice. He met the players and he fired strategic questions at manager Joe Girardi. “Can you tell me why,” asked Evan about a previous game, “you decided to switch the pitcher?”

The surprises didn’t end there. Rawlings heard about the story and sent Evan a personalized glove. Some things, though, had to wait for this season.

Evan’s mom, Karen Kushnir, is a special education advisor. When this all began, she was saddened by the circumstances. Then she spoke with officials of the Brewster Little League. The conversations led to the creation of the Brewster Challenger League for special-needs players. Many parents and students who wanted to help Evan and others like him in the community contributed their time to create two Challenger League teams.

Evan, his mom and others did not become discouraged on that day when Evan had to leave the dugout. Instead, they turned a disappointing situation into a new opportunity. Now baseball is providing more children in Brewster with the opportunity to have fun.

Jim

Did you ever hear of Ossie Schectman? He’s 93 now, and he lives in a senior living community in Rockland County. He has a quick smile and is a favorite of the staff.

Ossie was a collegiate All-American basketball point guard on two NIT championship teams at Long Island University. He also is in the National Basketball Association record books, having scored, on November 1, 1946, the first basket in NBA history.

Okay, so he isn’t as familiar a name as Michael Jordon or LeBron James. But, he should be, or at least he should be remembered and highly regarded by those who have come to play after him.

Ossie was “a tireless worker who drove fiercely, passed smoothly and set up the plays,” wrote Arthur Daley of The New York Times when he described Schectman’s role in a victory over DePaul at Madison Square Garden before a crowd of 18,318. Daley continued: “With the hard driving Ossie Schectman blazing a trail the Blackbirds unleashed a sizzling rally that sent them ahead…LoBello was the high scorer with 12, but Dolly King with 11 and Schectman were the real stars.”

Ossie received similar kudos for leading LIU over Loyola during 1939 and Ohio University during 1941 in NIT championship games. He was a baseball player, too, and he had a tryout with the New York Giants. Since the NBA didn’t exist at the time, he first played for the Philadelphia Sphas (South Philadelphia Hebrew Association) and for a semipro baseball team on Long Island. None of this, though, led to lasting fame and fortune. With a wife and child to support, his primary source of income came from working in New York’s Garment District.

But, after World War II, he did get to play for the Knicks when they were in the Basketball Association of America (pre-NBA) and he finished third one season in the league in assists. As already noted, he scored the NBA’s first points.

While none of his hard work led to a lot of money, he isn’t bitter. He still loves the game and recalls that he had a great life that just happened to include sports.

It’s great to be involved in sports during our youth and young adult days. The structure, discipline and competition teach us a lot about life. A chosen few are destined for fame and fortune. Many others do quite well in the professional, collegiate, or high school game as coaches, instructors, or in management. Even more like me find other ways to remain in the game while channeling our sports experiences into successful business careers.

When all is done, let’s hope that we all can be like Ossie and reflect on a great life that just happened to include sports.

Jim

In this professional sports town, many of you may not have heard about Jack Curran. He didn’t grab headlines, nor was he featured regularly on sports talk radio. That is until he passed away during March.

Jack was a coach for 55 years at Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens. He won 2,600 games while coaching several generations of baseball and basketball players. He won 22 Catholic school New York City championships – five for basketball and 17 for baseball. Four times, Molloy won championships in both sports during the same academic year.

It all started on a whim. Living in Massachusetts and working as a salesman, Jack read in the newspaper that St. John’s University, his alma mater, had hired Lou Carnesecca as an assistant basketball coach. Carnesecca had been the baseball and basketball coach at Molly. Jack decided to apply, and he was hired. He was getting ready for the 2013 baseball season when his body gave out at age 82.

Jack’s success at Molloy is well documented. A few other stories from his long life, though, may come as news to even those who knew him well.

During his playing days, Jack pitched for minor league teams in the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies organizations. As a player and later as a coach, he always stressed fundamentals, maintaining discipline and setting the performance bar at an extraordinarily high level for his players, for game officials and for himself.

Among his student-athletes were NBA players Brian Winters, Kenny Smith, Kenny Anderson and Kevin Joyce. Mike Baxter, currently with the New York Mets, also played for Jack, and he said Coach Curran really enjoyed helping young people. Baxter said that it didn’t matter to Jack if you played for him or not, and it didn’t matter if you needed help with a sports issue or if you were trying to find a job. He was there to help.

Jack was a devout Roman Catholic known for generous deeds far from the playing field. He even turned down the basketball head coach position at Boston College so he could remain close and care for his dying mother.

Not until his passing did many more sports fans come to know, albeit briefly, the success of a coach and the sweetness of a man. Huge stories that celebrated his life appeared in The New York Times and other newspapers. He was a topic of discussion on sports talk radio shows. He was mentioned during the CBS telecast of NCAA March Madness games. Upon learning of the passing of Coach Jack Curran, Coach Carnesecca said: “He won everything except World War III.”

He probably would have won that if it ever happened. More likely, he would have found a way to prevent it.

Jim

College hoopla each spring embraces basketball. For several weeks, NCAA March Madness consumes the sports world as 64 schools battle for the national championship.

Simultaneously, another college sport goes through the same paces but with fewer teams (16), less media coverage and less fanfare. In the hockey world, though, the final tournament of the year – known as the NCAA Frozen Four – always displays top talent, some of which finds its way into the National Hockey League days after the championship game.

Over the years, teams from Massachusetts, Minnesota, South Dakota and Michigan have dominated the game and the tournament. But this year, the finals pitted two teams from Connecticut – Yale University versus Quinnipiac University.

Early in the season, the Quinnipiac Bobcats were a long shot to play in the championship game. The team was disjointed and players were selfish on the ice. The won-lost record reflected the players’ lack of commitment to play a team system.

Suddenly, many of the players decided to summon what they called Muzzy Power – a special ability derived from donning mustaches!

As players started sprouting upper lip bristles in November, the team started to win games. The streak continued into December and then January. Muzzy Power was credited for fortunate goals, lucky wins and timely breaks. The change of face also happened to occur when the players began to embrace Coach Rand Pecknold’s up-tempo game and to support each other on the ice.

Even goalie Eric Hartzell, an undisciplined player, became a dedicated teammate. Earlier in his college career, he would arrive late for team meetings. He also let in bad goals and he allowed every goal – good and bad – to bother him. But all this changed, too.

Unlike his teammates, his power did not come from a moustache. Instead, before the season, he read a book (“How Full Is Your Bucket?”) that explained how to increase positive moments while reducing negative situations. One passage, “The Biology of Belief,” unleashed the power of consciousness, matter and miracles, and it taught Hartzell to respond positively whenever he failed to stop the puck.

Whether it was Muzzy Power, “The Biology of Belief,” or the collective decision to listen to their coach, the Bobcats continued to win until they found themselves in the finals of the Frozen Four. Unfortunately, Quinnipiac lost to Yale in that final game. Now, as they think about the new season, players must decide if they should focus on the magic of mustaches, read the bucket book, or play a team game.

Jim

There seems to be plenty of mea culpa along with requests for forgiveness these days in the sports world.

First, it was Tiger Woods.  Then, Michael Vick and this was followed by the Penn State matter. More recently, it has been Lance Armstrong and Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice. Between each of these incidents, there have been countless other athletes and coaches with far less star power but with the same need to request forgiveness for actions on and off the field.

These acts of contrition seem much more prominent than ever before. Could it be that instant and constant news coverage is pushing more of these episodes into the public eye?

Armstrong’s redemption might be elusive. He may have waited too long to reveal the truth. He cheated for years. He denied using performing enhancing drugs. He was adamant about his innocence, and he damaged the reputations of others who challenged him.

Working in his favor to reduce his public exile are his work to fight cancer, that he was just one of many elite cyclists who concealed doping and that he didn’t physically or financially injure another person (though he did take money for charity under false pretenses). Also working to his advantage are the many Americans who are involved in the drug culture and will not be critical of him. They include casual users, body builders on steroids, truckers on uppers and club hoppers on cocaine.

None of us are immune to personal or business embarrassments that we either create or have thrust upon us through our associations with family, employees, business partners, or clients. Luckily, for most of us, these failings will not make the news cycle. But, whether or not a personal or professional blunder grabs headlines, all of us must be prepared with a plan to address any slip-up with co-workers, business associates, clients, family and the community in which we live and work.

My recommendation is to own up quickly to any mistake. Be sincere with an apology. Engage in conversation with everyone who was affected or disappointed by your action. Show them that you have learned the error of your ways, and vow not to walk this same path again. Finally, do your penance and make the self-imposed punishment fit the crime.

If handled correctly, eventually you will redeem yourself. If you were a victim of another person’s poor judgment, only you can decide if the response was sincere. If it is, extend your hand in friendship and to show support.

Jim