Marquette News, Ray Mernagh, Rutgers News

BROOKLYN RED JUST WANTED IN

By RAY MERNAGH

Back in the day, as the Freshman coach at Bishop Ford High School in Brooklyn, Steve Finamore started realizing what he wanted to do with his life…and hoping it wasn’t too late to do it. That time period is when Finamore started meeting college coaches who were coming through Bishop Ford’s doors hoping to land studs like Charles Jones for their programs (Jones went to Rutgers initially before transferring to LIU and leading the country in scoring). “I saw how they coached and recruited 365 days a year, as a job, and it made me envious,” says Finamore. “I wanted that more than anything for myself, to just be able to coach, recruit, and develop skills, it seemed like a dream though.”
 
After all, how could a guy that had dropped out of John Jay High School during the ninth grade (after playing seven games on the varsity as a point guard) ever going to reach that dream without a college degree, much less a high school diploma? Could it even happen if the education hurdle was cleared? Finamore believed it could and that turned out to make all the difference.
 
After dropping out of school the kid known as “Red” lived the life of every basketball junkie still young enough to really ball. “I played all day every day,” says Finamore, “if I wasn’t playing I was working.”
 
Windsor Terrace is the neighborhood in Brooklyn where Finamore caught the hoops-habit while trying to get into the daily games of 3-on-3 in the schoolyard of Holy Name Elementary. It wasn’t an easy task for young Red as the players were almost all older and stronger than he was. “If you did get in a game you did everything you could not to lose,” says Finamore, ”because if you did, you waited forever to get back on the court.” Holy Name runs were serious because the ballers were real, and Manhattan Beach games, where he would play as he got older, were without equal according to Finamore.
 
Manhattan Beach is next to Coney Island and attracted future pros everyday — not to mention the weekends. “Mullin (as in Chris) was always there,” says Finamore, “and if you lost there you might as well jump in the water and catch some rays because you weren’t going to be running again for hours.” The players around New York at that time were a who’s who of basketball — especially Big East – history in the Mecca.
 
Mike Dunleavy, Vern Fleming, Red Bruin, Mullin, Pearl Washington, Sidney Green, and later on guys like Mashburn, Mr Chibbs, Strickland etc…the list is endless. Finamore remembers watching tryouts for the Empire State Games — a huge deal at the time – every summer at Bishop Ford, with one particular team having a back court Kenny Smith, Pearl and Kenny Anderson on it! Ziggy Sacignano gave Finamore his first break by letting him coach with his Brooklyn USA AAU outfit. “I had Stephon Marbury as a 7th grader,” says Finamore, “great kid when I had him.” By coaching the Brooklyn USA squads Finamore was around when the Bishop Ford opportunity came open and he got it.
 
That’s when he came to the realization that he wanted to be a college basketball coach, along with the dilemma of how to go about it. Right around this time Finamore met his current wife Mary who convinced him to take the GED exam. After passing that Mary’s next project was to get her man into college. Mary was a native of Michigan who’d been living in New York for ten years and wanted to make the move back home. Before he knew it, Finamore found himself enrolled full time at Lansing Community College and taking a 45 minute walk — in the snow — to the Michigan State basketball office and introducing himself to MSU assistant Tom Crean.
 
“Fran Fraschilla told me before i left New York to go see Tom Crean,” says Finamore, “he said Crean would look out for me.” Crean did just that, taking Fiamore under his wing and showing him the ropes of the MSU program. After finishing up at LCC, Finamore enrolled at MSU and became a full-time student manager under Izzo.
 
“The thing about coach Izzo is he treats managers like coaches and you really get to see how everything is done, it was incredible,” says Finamore. From his time at Michigan State Finamore has a national championship ring and two Big Ten championship rings. Finamore served for one season as an assistant at St Peter’s before a coaching change left him out of work again. Back in Michigan, he found himself presented with the chance to re-start the once-thriving basketball program at Jackson Community College in Jackson, Michigan. Right before his first season Finamore was struck by a car as he stepped off a sidewalk – he was on the phone with Mary at the time he got hit.
 
Just as Finamore stepped off the curb a driver ran a red light and rammed into another car. The car that was hit plowed into Finamore, separating him from both consciousness and his cell phone. All Mary heard was screeching tires and then screams of a female voice. Finamore vaguely remembers a lady repeatedly asking — screaming — to anyone within earshot: “Is he alive?, Oh my God, Is he alive?”
Mary looked across her Lansing office at her boss, former Michigan State running back Tico Duckett, with panic in her eyes and said “Steven just got hit by a car!” Finamore says the first emergency workers on the scene told his assistants later that they immediately started searching for a pulse because they thought he was dead. That’s easy to understand when you run down the list of his injuries resulting from the accident.
Broken Fibula
Shattered Knee Cap
Broken Wrist
Completely Shattered Cheek Bones
Concussion
It was a helluva start to the Brooklyn native’s first season on the job. Finamore was hired just a few months earlier, accepting the task after the college had cut the program 26-years ago. Just when he started feeling like he was making inroads he had this kind of massive rehab to deal with…He missed twelve games! (Note to any JCC players: Don’t go questioning your coach’s toughness). Now in its third year, the program reached the goal set by Finamore last season of making the Playoffs. This season has seen them run off three straight wins after a tough start and looking towards a date with Mott Community College (a program Finamore studied hard when building his own at JCC) and their hall of fame coach Steve Schmidt.
Finamore’s story is one that’s perfect for Thanksgiving — he’s a guy, a hoops junkie, that refuses to give up his dream of teaching the game to kids that want to learn it. He’s thankful just to preach the basketball gospel on his own journey, one that pays very, very little. Asked how much he loves basketball Finamore puts it in perspective: “I love Mary, my daughter Taylor, my players and basketball. Those four are the most important things in my life.”
 
Basketball should give thanks for coach Red — and everybody like him!

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