You here it often about athletes big-timing people after they begin to make millions of dollars; better known as ‘they forget where they come from’. I would hope that just because a pro basketball player makes a lot of money that they stay grounded and never forget the people that helped them along the way or still respect and appreciate the people they met on the way up.
I came across this piece written by Denis Hamill of the New York Daily News on Stephon Marbury.
Ray Garvey, an ex-cop who used to run the Brooklyn PAL, and who’d coached Marbury in his early teens, introduced me to the quiet, respectful kid on an icy February morning two days before Marbury’s 18th birthday.
Ray Garvey is a cop who just 13 years ago introduced Hamill to Marbury.
At the end of the article, Hamill describes how he bumped into Marbury.
A few years ago I said hello to Marbury in the Knicks dressing room. I didn’t expect him to remember me, but I found it odd that he also didn’t remember Ray Garvey, the PAL cop who’d coached him for several years in “The Garden.”
“I ran into him a few years ago,” Garvey said. “He didn’t have a clue who I was and I’m larger than life in personality and size. Maybe it was too much fame and fortune too young, but it’s like he purposely erased a lot of memories. Especially the ones when he was that sweet Kid from Coney.”
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
