Red Sarachek
From Hoopedia
Bernard "Red" Sarachek (b. October 19, 1912 in Bronx, New York - d. November 15, 2005 in Deerfield Beach, Florida), who played basketball at New York University in the 1930s, is better known for being head coach at Yeshiva University for almost 40 years. Sarachek starred at Manhattan's Peter Stuyvesant High School.
After playing at NYU, 1931-33, for legendary coach Howard Cann, Sarachek coached at Yeshiva University. He remained at Yeshiva University as coach and athletic director from 1941-1980, winning 306 games during his career. Sarachek counted among his disciples some of the best-known coaches in the U.S., among them Lou Carnesecca, Jack Donohue, and Red Holzman.
In the 1940s and 1950s, he also coached amateur, semi-pro and pro teams. He coached the Scranton Miners of the American Basketball League, where he won league championships in 1949-50 and 1950-51; they were runners-up in 1948-49 and 1951-52.
Sarachek's favorite story from these days involved a 1950 playoff scheduling conflict. Sarachek coached both the Miners in the ABL and the Mohawk Redskins in the New York State Professional League (Sarachek was the player-coach of the Mohawk squad). Trouble was, in reality there was only one ten-man squad with two different uniforms. So Sarachek split his squad in half, hired some ringers to fill in and had one team tell the officials that he was sick. Sarachek's teams won both games, and went on to win both league championships.
With Scranton, Sarachek broke the ABL’s segregation rules by playing Dolly King, William "Pop" Gates, and Eddie Younger at the same time. Pop Gates, one of the last stars of the fabled New York Rens, had a stellar pro career that led to international fame with the Harlem Globetrotters and eventual enshrinement in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Sarachek also coached the Grand Street Boys Association, a settlement-house team that finished first in New York City's Amateur Athletic Union basketball competition. Bookies and street-corner sports mavens favored them to win the national AAU tournament, which was being held in Denver. But a bunch of poor kids from Manhattan's Lower East Side did not have the money to get to Denver.
The Red Sarachek High School Basketball Tournament is held annually at Yeshiva University, and brings together 18 Jewish high school teams from across the country.
Sarachek is a member of the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame.
