NYC Legendary Head Coach Johnny Mathis 🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀

For most basketball coaches, seeing their team mired in a 27-point deficit would be cause for some angry barking, a clipboard fling, and a swig or two of Mylanta.

For John F. Kennedy head coach Johnny Mathis, it’s his medicine.

Mathis, a fixture at JFK since 1987, has had more to deal with than the average coach. Health issues have thrown him a curve the past several seasons, which has enabled the legendary coach to put subpar play by his team in its proper perspective.

So when his Knights were down 49-22 with just over six minutes left in the third quarter in last week’s game against Truman, there were no sideline histrionics. Just a calm timeout, and a chance to get his players’ heads back in the game.

“They’re young,” Mathis said. “Most of them are inexperienced so I just tried to settle them down.”

Kennedy responded by shaving their 27-point hole to a single point with 16 seconds to play. But Kennedy’s miracle comeback came up just short when Emmanuel Sarbah’s putback off Isaiah Malave’s missed free throw with 0.3 seconds to play came a fraction too late as Truman held on for a 69-67 victory.

“We dug a hole that was too deep to come back from,” Mathis said. “We got down 8-0 to start the game, and we just let them shoot and we weren’t playing any defense. But we did exactly what we were supposed to do in the second half, which allowed us to come back from 27 down. If we had done that from the beginning, we would have been all right.”

Long Island Basketball and Hempstead High School Legend, Rhode Island Standout and Professional Baller Kyle Ivey-Jones.. Kyle played for Legendary Coach Ted Adams. So you already know this is going to be a Legendary Evening..Kyle is the only player ever to start on four Long Island championship teams, he was also twice the MVP of the state public schools tournament and put his name at the top of the Tigers' career scoring list (1,701).

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After leaving Hempstead, he attended Rhode Island University like a few of our past guests. Carlton Silk Owens, Mergin Sina and Abdul Fox. At Rhode Island he continued his steady play before playing pro ball in countries like Hondurus, Puerto Rico, Ireland, England, New Zealand and Portugal. Now He serves as the assistant coach at East Providence High School in Rhode Island.

Boys and Girls St Bonaventure Great & JV Head Coach at Brooklyn Technical High School Elmer Anderson @igotyoubasketball 🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀

Elmer was part of one of the best backcourt in NYC History along side Dwayne "Pearl" Washington. Elmer held his own and was able to translate his game into one of the finest underrated point guards in NYC History. He also did it on the college level at St Bonaventure University where he is a Legend celebrated by his Peers & University.

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He played a few years overseas before returning home to play in the pro-am leagues throughout the city..I had the pleasure of playing against Elmer in the West 4th Basketball Finals. Those were the days. Elmer spent time at his alma mater Boys & Girls as assistant to Ruth Lovelace and was apart of that amazing run of city and state championships. Now he serves as the JV coach for Brooklyn Tech.

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UNLV Great and NBA Veteran Ricky Sobers @rbsobers .

First UNLV player picked in the first round of the NBA Draft and first All-American in school history.

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The 6-foot-3-inch guard scored 855 points in 54 games for a career average of 15.8.

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The Rebels went 20-6 in his first season and 24-5 with an NCAA Tournament berth in his second.

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Quotable: “Sobers played two years for us. The first year, he was a pain in the ass. The second year, he was sensational.” — Jerry Tarkanian, former UNLV coach

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Currently: Fitness trainer and sports performance coach in Las Vegas. Played 11 seasons in the NBA after being drafted 16th overall by Phoenix. He once scored 25 points against the Boston Celtics in the NBA finals.. Also played for Indiana, Chicago, Washington and Seattle. Jersey No. 40 was retired by UNLV in 2004.

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NYC Legendary Coach Mo Hicks @rraider124 ...Its a honor to interview Mo Hicks, who has left such an impact on NYC Basketball has been since unmatched. He is the only coach to win a city championship in both the PSAL & CHSAA...Salute No Hicks, a True NYC Legend.

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In 16 years at Rice high school in Harlem, Hicks won five New York State Federation championships and compiled a record of 352-86. Among Hicks' top players include Kansas State forward Curtis Kelly, Louisville point guard Edgar Sosa, Kemba Walker (Connecticut)

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If you're from New York City, grew up in the late 1980s and throughout the '90s like I did, and follow CHSAA basketball; you'll automatically recognize Rice High School as one of the perennial dominant forces in city hoops, be it public school or private school. That's why it's still a shock 24 hours after the Harlem institution announced its decision to close. In other words, we truly bid farewell to a legend.

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To honor the legacy of Rice basketball, we'll pay tribute to those that graced the green and gold colors of the Raiders by ranking the ten greatest players in Rice history similar to what we did with the college hoops bucket list in an earlier post.

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Any mention of Rice basketball has to include its most decorated head man and former alumnus, one that spent 16 years turning a program once left for dead into one of the premier prep teams in the nation, let alone the city. The only coach in New York City to win both a CHSAA championship and a PSAL title, (with Brandeis in 1992) Hicks was responsible for a Who's Who of future college stars, some of whom will get their own tributes in this space later. He was the director of basketball operations at St. John's University, Hicks is still a profound influence on his former players and in the game. Now he is the Head of the Parks Dept at Riverbank State Park.....

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2021 Year in Review NYC Guards Early 1980's Rod Strickland, Spious "Spice" Kilpatrick, Tony Chiles, John Johnson, Gerald "The General"Greene, Carlton "Silk" Owens & Kenny Anderson

Basketballheadzz Live Award

was a success, congratulations to all our award winners and thank you to all my BasketballHeadzz for your support. Season 2 starts Sunday January 3rd ( My Sister Patricia Harding Birthday)

Hosted by: @stylesbynitah_

& @tina.blingz

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Sponosored by: @officialgameovernyc 🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀 Coming New Years Day 1/1/20

We appreciate all the love so we gotta give some back as we always do but this awards show is gonna be special. Tune in 10pm🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀

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#nycelitebasketball #saveouryouth #happynewyear2021

#nycelitebasketball #saveouryouth #saveourboy&girls #nycsummerbasketball #nychighschoolsports

#nychighschoolbasketball #citywidesummerleague

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NYSAA Sports Founder Dwayne Cummberbach @a2oyouth ..Dwayne's NYSAA Sports League is the the toughest charter school league in NYC. The league has been around for over 15 years and has been so successful the PSAL created a developmental league to complete with NYSAA Sports..I've known Dwayne since I was a teacher at Allen Christian some years ago..A great guy with a great basketball league to help those kids who probably wouldn't get a chance to play high school basketball..Tune in Tomorrow night at 8pm..

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All City Samuel J Tilden & Southern Illinois Great Steve Middleton @middleman2442 .Steve was one of the most dominating big men in the city...The 80's was filled with some of the best players to ever come out of NYC and Bug Steve was definitely one of them...

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Middleton enjoyed tremendous success as a four year letter winner at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. He ranks 5th in career scoring at SIUC with 1,710 career points and was inducted into the school[apos]s Hall of Fame in 1996. [quote]A pure scorer[quote] is what his former college coach Rich Herrin desribes Middleton as. In his senior season Middleton was 6th in the nation in scoring with 25 ppg (28 ppg in confernce play), 6.0 rebounds, while shooting 49.8% from the field, and 2 steals per game. Middleton was chosen as a unanimous choice for first team all Missouri Valley Conference as a Junior and Senior. Middleton was drafted by the Long Island Knights of the United States Basketball League (USBL) in 1988. He also had a brief stint in the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) in 1988.

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Middleton worked as a Health Educator in the Alexander & Pulaski Counties schools and communities in Southern Illinois. As a Health Educator Middleton[apos]s focus was on [apos]Health issues in Black America[apos], in which he participated in many health conferences as a speaker. During this time Middleton was heavily involved with A.A.U. basketball in Southern Illinois. He is now the head coach at Midlothian High school..#nycelitebasketball #saveouryouth

#nycelitebasketball #saveouryouth #saveourboy&girls #nycsummerbasketball #nychighschoolsports

#nychighschoolbasketball

Erasmus Hall Leading Scorer in a season, Iona Standout & Founder of Fun Sports Ricky Rivers. @thelifeof_mine

As a teen the streets of Brownsville Brooklyn tempted him to head in the wrong direction. Luckily, he connected with the father of Brooklyn basketball, Mr. Gil Reynold’s, which put him on the path toward All American honors as a player at Lamar College. From there he found his way into the division 1 program at Iona College.

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Faced with the responsibilities of fatherhood and being a collegiate student athlete, he persevered and was able to do well athletically, parent effectively and earn his degree from Iona. With his degree he went onto have a successful career in the financial services sector and stand up 2 non profit organizations. Through his Funsport programs he’s had professional players like Kemba Walker, Isaiah Whitehead and Kyle Anderson hone their skills and compete against high caliber hoopers across the country. Can't wait to hear his story Monday 8pm on BasketballHeadzz Live..

#nycelitebasketball #nycsummerbasketball #nychighschoolsports