claver2010 {l Wrote}:i can't speak to 30 years ago but i wouldn't use wealthy for ossining now, has a wide spectrum with some low / mid class areas
Yeah, I get up to see my parents and siblings enough to drive through Ossining to know what your saying is correct, but, in contrast to thirty years ago there are some affluent sections outside of Chilmark that did not exist 30 years ago and they have even cleaned up Main Street and put in luxury apartments down along the River. And the demographic change is absolutely striking and obvious if you drive along State Street or the neighborhood off Route 9 by the Italian Bakery—you might as well be in Honduras. Point is, Ossining never produced much in the way of basketball talent—although they produced the occasional D1 football player. There was maybe one kid in my era who made it to Temple, but that was almost entirely the product of him being 6’8” and he never got off the bench the entire time he was there. And that was when it was a decidedly working class place.
And I believe Teddy is talking about Rasul Salahuddin, who is basically the shorter, Toughchester version of Lloyd Daniels. That kid could ball—he was a playground legend when he was in middle school. He played on an AAU team with a cousin of mine (who ended up riding the pine at Iona for a year before transferring to a D2 school) and I watched him absolutely destroy Khalid Reeves, despite being a couple of years younger. Unfortunately, he was also as dumb as a pile of bricks and he ended up getting shot for the first time after leading Mount Vernon to the state title (and I heard he absolutely destroyed Danny Hurley during the famous scrimmage). Anyway, he was going to be a non-qualifier anyway, but getting shot cemented his place as a JUCO—there was talk of him straight up trying to declare for the NBA draft before the shooting. So he goes the JUCO route for a year and is a JUCO All American and was apparently headed to Kentucky or Temple when he ended up getting shot a second time—this time right through the knee cap.
Most people thought he’d never play again. He was a prolific jumper—kid could jump like Earl Manigault according to the city game weirdos like Pete Axhelm and the like—but he somehow made it back to JUCO after a year or two recovering and remade himself from an unstoppable 2 into a slick 1. Got some of his hops back as well, although a shadow of what he could do before the second shooting. Anyway, he ended up at Long Beach State playing for Seth Greenberg and he dragged them to an NCAA birth. Apparently had a legendary show down with Chris Herren when he was at Fresno State in which he beat Fresno largely be himself in double OT or something.
NBA was scared off by the shootings and the fact that he had a bullet hole in his knee. He ended up being drafted into the infant D League. He ended up playing very well and just about the time he was to get a 10 day contract, he left his D League team and went to Europe. Unlike most of these stories, this apparently has a happy ending. He goes to Europe and does well for six or seven years before his knee gives out. He makes good money and actually holds on to it. Moves back to Mount Vernon and works with troubled kids while also coaching an AAU team that has become pretty successful and has also become a “point guard guru” that high end high school and college kids pay to work with.
Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2020 7:33 pm
