Cardozo’s Ron Naclerio sets PSAL wins record

Ron Naclerio said he realized only recently that the biggest break he ever got was never getting a break.

So instead of fulfilling his dream of coaching at St. John’s, his alma mater, or for the Knicks or Nets, he has remained at his other alma mater, Benjamin Cardozo High School in Queens, for 35 years.

That allowed him Tuesday to celebrate his 723rd victory as the school’s boys basketball coach and stand alone among Public Schools Athletic League coaches, a history that dates to 1903.

“As each second goes on, it’s meaning a lot more,” Naclerio said after beating Francis Lewis, 88-72, in Cardozo’s Bayside, Queens, gym, which was packed with students and friends, including former players.

He said he was proud of doing something “nobody in the history of the biggest city in the world has ever done. You have to be good, you have to be good for a long, long time. You have to be lucky.

“I’ve been blessed with players that let me coach them up.”

Naclerio passed Campus Magnet (formerly Jackson) High coach Chuck Granby, who retired after the 2013-14 season with 722 victories in 45 years.

At 58, Naclerio would appear to be within eventual reach of the overall state record 972 victories by Jack Curran at Archbishop Molloy, a Catholic school in Queens. He trails only Curran and Ed Petrie on the state list. Petrie retired in 2010 with 754 victories, most of them at East Hampton.

“Let me just get to hopefully Thursday and 724,” he said. But he made it clear he has no plans to step down anytime soon.

“I still love it,” he said. “As long as the kids don’t drive me to the point where I can’t coach them anymore . . . It’s been a great run. It’s like Forrest Gump. I still want to continue running, but I know one day unfortunately it’s going to come to an end. I hope it’s not for a while.”

Naclerio is a famously colorful only-in-New York character whose manic sideline demeanor has not been diminished by age. He did not ease up Tuesday even as his team took charge in the waning minutes after fending off an early challenge from Francis Lewis. Along the way he snapped his clipboard in two.

Among those in the crowd was one of the four NBA players Naclerio coached at Cardozo – Duane Causwell, 47, a first-round pick of the Kings in 1990 who played 11 seasons in the NBA.

“If it weren’t for him, there wasn’t no Duane Causwell,” Causwell said. “The first year I came out for tryouts, I couldn’t even play. I went for a layup and missed the backboard and the whole rim and everyone was laughing. He said, ‘Look, you work with me every day, I can get you a scholarship and you can get an opportunity to play NBA ball.’ I believed him, and the hard work paid off.’’’

Said Naclerio, “I was obsessed with making Duane a player. He couldn’t even hit a layup. When you threw him a ball he wouldn’t even spread his fingers. People laughed at him and I said he’s going to play in the NBA.”

Has Naclerio changed all these years later?

“He’s a little bit calmer,” Causwell said, laughing.

Naclerio’s nickname at the famed Rucker Park is “The Teacher.” He has connections to many prominent players even among those who did not play for him.

Among those interviewed in the trailer for a documentary that is being made about him called “Naclerio 723,” are Ron Artest, Jason Kidd, Joakim Noah, Ed Pinckney and Billy Donovan.

Naclerio took over for his own coach, Al Matican – who was in the gym for Tuesday’s milestone – for the 1981-82 season and promptly went 1-21. But there hasn’t been much losing since. He won PSAL titles in 1999 and 2014.

“This is big for him,” Causwell said of the record-breaking win. “I saw him before the game and I told him, ‘You look more nervous than the first time we played Jackson.’”

Asked about the support he has gotten from former players leading up to the Lewis game, Naclerio said, “It shows that something I’ve done, either while they’re here or when they leave, they realize I helped them not only become better players but I helped them become better in life.”

Naclerio proudly displayed a proclamation from the mayor and took numerous pictures with well-wishers before leaving for an after-party at a nearby restaurant.

The coach has spent his life in New York, part of the fabric of the city dating to the prior generation. His father, Emil, was a doctor who performed life-saving surgery on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. after King was stabbed in the chest with a letter opener during an appearance in New York in 1958.

“It’s special; it’s starting to hit me now,” Naclerio said after Tuesday’s game, noting that even if he might not be coaching at the level of a Phil Jackson or Mike Krzyzewski, “at the level I am, well, I’m not patting myself on the back, but that’s what people think I’ve become.

“If that’s ego or braggadocio, I don’t know. In high school, I’ve become the king, so it feels good.”

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.