Who knew Plainview produced basketball coaches?

New Grizzlies coach grew up with college coaches Seth and Brad Greenberg

Jim Baumbach

12:31 PM EDT, June 13, 2007

A little more than a week ago, around the same time Billy Donovan provided everyone with a great impersonation of a high school senior reneging on his new prom date so he could go with his old girlfriend, another Long Islander made some NBA news that slipped under people's radar.

A guy who grew up right by Bethpage Black and played high school basketball at Plainview JFK was named the head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies. Yes, Marc Iavaroni is a Long Islander.

And while Plainview won't ever be mistaken as a basketball hotbed, Iavaroni isn't the only basketball coach that this upper-middle class town has produced.

Iavaroni grew up alongside the Greenberg brothers, Seth and Brad, who have both enjoyed long, healthy careers in the sport. Seth currently coaches Virginia Tech, and Brad, a former Philadelphia 76ers general manager, coaches at Radford (Va.) University.

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"I'm always getting emails from people in Plainview, either that I went to school with or have some connection," Seth said. "'Do you remember me?' Or, 'I went to the same school.' I haven't been back in years, but I don't think the community has changed all too much."

Well, except for the fact it has stopped producing professional basketball players and coaches, which pretty much can be said for all of Long Island. Talk to anyone from their generation Brad graduated from Plainview JFK in 1972, two years ahead of Seth and Marc Iavaroni and they'll talk non-stop about how big basketball was for them as teenagers.

"I haven't been back in quite a long time, but I guess basketball on Long Island isn't quite as popular as it was back when we were playing," Brad said. "When I was in high school, basketball was pretty popular."

This isn't your typical back-in-my-day type of story. They're right. Before lacrosse took over as the biggest sport among teenagers, basketball used to be huge here. "Everyone knew about the Rockville Centre summer league," Brad said. "If you were a high school player and your team wanted to be any good, you had to be playing at Hickey Field in the summer."

The All-Long Island team when Brad was a senior also included Mitch Kupchak, the Lakers general manager who played at Brentwood. And whenever Brad runs into Matt Doherty, who starred at Holy Trinity in Hicksville, one of them always says, "I've got next at Prospect Park," referring to the East Meadow basketball court that was where the best players had pickup games in the summer. Brad and Seth could go for hours with their memories of Long Island hoops.

The funny part is, Iavaroni really wasn't interested in being a part of that scene as a youngster. Golf was his game. "When he was younger, you had to call him up and say, 'Come on, let's go play,'" Brad said. "It wasn't like his first love was to play basketball."

Seth even recalled that Iavaroni even planned to spend the summer before his senior year at golf school instead of basketball camp. Seth told him, "Forget about this golf. You have to go to Five-Star."

Iavaroni decided on basketball, which obviously proved to be the right career choice. Although not a star player in high school, he showed promise as a player and caught the eye of Virginia. He flourished immediately once he started playing in college.

"He made a tremendous jump between high school and college," Brad said. "He went from being a good high school player to being a respectable ACC player. He really developed dramatically."

Iavaroni played seven years in the NBA before finishing his playing career overseas. He's been an assistant ever since, first at Bowling Green and then in the NBA under Mike Fratello in Cleveland, Pat Riley in Miami and Mike D'Antoni in Phoenix.

Understandably, his career has been a source of interest for his family, many of whom still live on Long Island. "Well, I'll tell you, it's been exciting," said his father, Sal, of Centerport. "It's really given us a lot to look forward to in our retirement."

Now Iavaroni gets his chance at the helm of a NBA team, surely an opportunity that very few people who hail from Plainview will ever be able to say.