HIGH-SCHOOL COACH GLAD TO SEE BROWN RETURN HOME
By Marc Berman - New York Post
July 25, 2005 4:00am
With Larry Brown on the cusp of being named the Knicks head coach, Bob Gersten can’t stop getting nostalgic about the old days in Long Beach.
Gersten – Brown’s head coach at Long Beach High – finds this moment so beautifully ironic. Gersten, 84, recalls how desperately Brown’s family wanted the high school prodigy to bypass North Carolina and stay home to play for NYU, then a well-regarded college basketball program.
“The family always wanted him to come to New York,” said Gersten, who runs a 90-year-old boys camp in the Adirondacks: Brant Lake Camp. “And now it’s going to happen. He’s not going to turn down $10 million a year to do something he’s always wanted to do, unless the doctors tell him he can’t.”
There are still a few Long Island relatives left, but most of them have passed on. Brown’s mother is 94, living in a nursing home, but she will finally see him rule the Garden sideline as Knicks coach.
Brown lost his father of a sudden heart attack when he was 12, so Gersten became an influential figure. Gersten credits his father’s death to Brown’s nomadic coaching career.
“I’ve always felt that because he lost his father at an important part of his life, he’s always been looking for something more,” Gersten said. “No matter what it is, it’s never been enough. He’s never been satisfied.”
Maybe now Brown can find peace at the Garden, his career coming full circle, beginning in Long Beach. “He loved the Knicks and he loved Red Holzman,” Gersten said.
Brown, a 5-11 point guard, was recruited by North Carolina’s Frank McGuire. Against his family’s wishes, Brown took off for Tobacco Road. Brown’s uncles were against Carolina because they wanted to see him play. Gersten stepped in and ensured Brown became a Tar Heel.
But after Brown’s freshman year, McGuire was out and Air Force assistant Dean Smith was in. “At first he loved it, but when they changed coaches, he wanted to go to NYU,” Gersten said. “I vetoed it. Larry didn’t think Dean was a bigtime coach. But his mom always told him, you’re going to do what Bob says, and your uncles aren’t going to run your basketball career. He was by far better off at Carolina.”
Smith became a college-basketball legend and spawned Brown, who turned into a Hall of Fame coach. “I remember during his freshman year, McGuire called me and said, he’s the best under-6-foot player in the country,” Gersten said. “He was a true point guard before they called it that. He was pass, pass, pass, and defense, defense, defense. Just like he coaches.”
According to Gersten, Brown keeps in contact with several Long Beach teammates, reciting names such as Joe Goldstein, Pat Lynch, Ed Canner. Gersten claims fellow Long Beach grad Billy Crystal, six years Brown’s junior, “idolized” Brown back then.
“Larry just loved the game and he loved when people watched him play,” Gersten said. “Again, basketball became a substitute for his father.”
Gersten says that even when he returned East to coach the Nets in Jersey, he wasn’t happy. “I remember him saying, “I can’t stand the spectators at our games, they don’t know anything about basketball,” Gersten said.
Brown won’t find that problem at The Mecca.
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Sudden success
In Larry Brown’s six NBA head coaching stops, the team has improved in his first season as opposed to the season before he arrived in all but one place (San Antonio, 1987-88): * – Won NBA Championship
NETS
1980: 24-58
1981: 44-38
SPURS
1987: 28-54
1988: 21-61
CLIPPERS
1991: 31-51
1992: 41-41
PACERS
1992: 40-42
1993: 47-35
SIXERS
1996: 18-64
1997: 31-51
PISTONS
2002: 50-32
2003: 54-28*
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