Ron Naclerio finds himself standing alone in the New York high school basketball history books yet again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Naclerio, the longtime head coach of the boy\u2019s basketball program at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Queens, captured his 973rd victory on Friday with a 69-46 win over Julia Richman, making him the winningest high school coach in New York state history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Naclerio, 68, finds himself above legendary head coach Jack Curran of Archbishop Molloy, who racked up 972 career wins over his five-decade tenure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ron Naclerio has been coaching at Cardozo for over five decades. Gary Giorgobiani<\/p>\n
Along with high school basketball, Naclerio also became the most victorious head coach in New York City basketball history across all levels of play, including the NBA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even before Friday\u2019s game began, Naclerio knew that something different was in the air, noting that the atmosphere was a \u201cCardozo basketball lovefest\u201d despite being an away game for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it was special,\u201d Naclerio told The Post via phone following the win. \u201cBecause when you look in the crowd and you see 30 or 40 former players, and you see the media.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cardozo got off to a commanding lead to start the game, with Naclerio having the chance to get all of his players on the court for the win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it was special,\u201d Naclerio told The Post on the phone following the win. Gary Giorgobiani<\/p>\n
\u201cAt halftime I realized unless an atomic bomb hit the place, 16 basketball minutes would put me on a basketball Mount Rushmore myself,\u201d Naclerio laughed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then, with a minute left in the game, the milestone of standing alone in New York City basketball history started to set in, with Naclerio noting the weight of being discussed in the same sentence as legendary Knicks coach Red Holzman.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTo even be considered in the same sentence as the only Knick coach to win two NBA championships, a Hall of Famer \u2026 I\u2019m going to enjoy this,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Naclerio also becomes the most victorious head coach in New York City basketball history across all levels of play, including the NBA. Gary Giorgobiani<\/p>\n
As expected, celebration ensued following the win, with Naclerio noting the many people in the NYC basketball world who reached out and gave their congratulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to see on the phone Rick Pitino texting you, Kenny Anderson texting you, Kenny Smith texting you, it\u2019s definitely a \u2018Wow,\u2019 \u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Bayside native\u2019s milestone also comes after he was almost sidelined from coaching after city investigators accused him of improperly recruiting students from surrounding schools to join his team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Naclerio ultimately scored a legal win, but higher-ups at Cardozo gave the legendary coach a two-game suspension in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAt halftime I realized, unless an atomic bomb hit the place, 16 basketball minutes would put me on a basketball Mount Rushmore myself,\u201d Naclerio laughed. Gary Giorgobiani<\/p>\n
Naclerio, who has coached at Cardozo for 51 years, has won two city titles \u2014 1999 and 2014 \u2014 and produced four NBA players: Rafer Alston, Royal Ivey, Duane Causwell and James Southerland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite five decades of coaching, Naclerio doesn\u2019t think he\u2019s done just yet, saying that, in basketball terms, he\u2019s in the fourth quarter of his career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I\u2019m in the fourth quarter,\u201d Naclerio said. \u201cAm I in the beginning of the fourth quarter? Am I in the middle of the fourth quarter? Am I late in the fourth quarter? Or am I in overtime? I don\u2019t know.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll great things come to an end, and I know when the day will come. The day is not here yet,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ron Naclerio finds himself standing alone in the New York high school basketball history books yet again.\u00a0 Naclerio,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[47032,57,9,56,63,65,64,47033,319],"class_list":["post-118183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-high-school-basketball","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-ron-naclerio","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}