It’s his signature move: shouting and pacing the bench, wearing his signature orange polo and blue pants. 

NY1 may have gone with him to an away game, but put Benjamin N. Cardozo High School coach Ron Naclerio in any high school gym, and he feels right at home. 

The shouting is his norm — but the stakes these days are unprecedented. 

What You Need To Know

Nine hundred and seventy-three wins would make Ron Naclerio the winningest high school basketball coach in all of New York state — and the winningest basketball coach in the city — at any level of the game

The late Jack Curran, former coach at Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens, holds the record for the most wins in high school: 972

Naclerio has coached thousands of kids over the years, some of whom went on to play in the NBA. Dozens of others are coaching high school, college and even the pros

“It’s starting to become a thing that — every day like, ‘Come on, get there already, get there already,’” Naclerio said. 

“There” is 973 wins, a number that would make him the winningest high school basketball coach in all of New York state. 

“The most wins in high school is Jack Curran, who I’m chasing, may he rest in peace,” Naclerio said. “Fifty-five years, 972 wins.”

Win 973 would also make him the winningest basketball coach in the city — at any level of the game. 

“The most wins by an NBA coach: Red Holzman, 613,” Naclerio said. “The most wins by a college coach is Lou Carnesecca, 526.”

He says the weight of 973 is made even heavier by the company he’s in.

“It’s almost kind of scary,” Naclerio said. “Because I know the history of New York City basketball. New York City is the mecca of basketball, the mecca.”

Naclerio grew up in Bayside, Queens. 

“I was raised in this house, I live in this house, and I’ll probably die in this house,” he said. 

His entire house is a shrine to his basketball career. There are trophies everywhere — hundreds of them. 

The walls of his childhood bedroom are filled with pictures of him playing and coaching; pictures of him as a teenager when he was a ballboy for the Knicks in the ’70s (he was there for both championship seasons); pictures of him as a student at Cardozo, playing basketball.

“I got in there September of 1973, and I haven’t left,” Naclerio said. 

But baseball was actually his better sport. So he did leave, briefly, to go play at St. John’s. 

Then he was drafted by the Chicago White Sox, until a few injuries ended his playing career and landed him back at the gym at Cardozo as an assistant coach. 

Six years later, it was his team to lead. 

“The first year was embarrassing,” he said with a laugh. “I won one game and lost 21, oh my God.”

But he turned things around by year two, and is now in year 45 at the helm — 51 years total. 

“I’m starting my second half-century,” Naclerio said. “Second half, that’s a long time.”

In those 51 years, he couldn’t avoid the reality of basketball in the city. 

“I had 10 players shot and killed,” Naclerio said. “Two of them, they were playing with the streets. But eight of them? Wrong place, wrong time.”

The majority of his trophies, however, carry with them happier memories of students who went on to find success. 

“Some played in the NBA, some are coaching,” Naclerio said. “I have 12 coaching high school, I have 14 coaching college.”

One former player is now his assistant coach, whose own son played on the team. 

“He’s a very hard coach to deal with, but as you grow up, you always remember the ones that coached you hard in life,” Tony Maminakis said.

Another, Royal Ivey, is an associate head coach for the Houston Rockets. 

“He makes more in meal money on the road than I will make the whole season coaching Cardozo,” Naclerio said. “But I’ve never done it for money. I’ve done it for love.”

Done it for love, at the expense of love. 

“I’ve never been married,” Naclerio said. “I was close once, and that person wanted me to marry her, not her and the Cardozo basketball team, which I could understand. ‘Do you take Cardozo basketball to be a lawfully wedded wife? I do.'”

But nonetheless, it’s been a life filled with love. 

“When you, in the spring, are in the weight room with the kid, when you are in the spring, in the park with the kid to work on his ball handling, shooting, whatever it is. During the summer, when you reach into your pocket to put them in summer tournaments, when the kids don’t have money for the referee fee so you’ve got to cover the referee fee, and then you do it in the fall,” Naclerio said. “You realize the labor of love, boy, a lot of people have no idea that labor of love.”

So ask the thousands of students he’s coached to just about 973 wins, and they’ll tell you the only place he truly stands alone is at the top.