Wendell Alexis
From Hoopedia
Having completed a long and stellar playing career, Wendell Alexis joined the coaching staff at New Jersey Institute of Technology in August 2005.
NJIT is the first college coaching stop for Alexis, but he has spent his entire adult life in the game, having starred at Syracuse University, where he graduated in 1986, and continuing through a professional career that lasted nearly 20 years until his retirement in 2004.
A graduate of Christ the King High School in Queens, Alexis was one of the top players in New York City before heading off to Syracuse, where he scored 1,212 career points, and grabbed over 400 rebounds. He was an All-Big East honoree for teams that consistently ranked among the best in the country.
Drafted by the Golden State Warriors in 1986, he spent his professional playing career overseas, starring in some of the top foreign leagues, including Spain, Italy, Israel, France, Germany and Greece. He was an all-star in the Euroleague (leading club teams from throughout the continent) from 1998 to 2001.
In 1998, he had the honor of representing the United States as a member of the bronze medal-winning Team USA at the World Basketball Championships in Athens, Greece.
He began his pro career in Spain and moved on to Italy, where he played from 1988 to 1993, earning Italian league Most Valuable Player honors in 1993.
Joining the famed Maccabi Tel Aviv team, Alexis was MVP of the Israeli league, when his team captured the league and cup championships in 1993-94.
He later played in France and then moved to Germany, where he played from 1996 to 2002. Along the way, Wendell was Most Valuable Player of the German league three times and in 1998 was third in the voting for Athlete of the Year in Berlin, a remarkable feat, considering the overwhelming popularity of soccer in that country.
After a year in Greece, Alexis returned to Germany, where he led his new team, Mitteldeutscher, to its best record and its first-ever European trophy. His team won the 2004 FIBA Cup. As a result, he capped his career by being honored as the MVP for the Western region of FIBA, basketball's world governing body.
Having gone out at the top of his game as a player, Wendell Alexis spent a year coaching as an assistant at St. Joseph High School in Metuchen, NJ, and also as head coach of the MSU Skyliners 16u AAU team, before joining the staff at NJIT. At St. Joseph, he worked extensively with Andrew Bynum, who went directly from high school to the 2005 NBA draft.
He and his wife, Nixia, reside with their three sons in Hillsborough, NJ.
