NEW YORK – Dreams of professional basketball don’t have to end at the NBA. Just ask public school science teacher Reuben McLaughlin, the new owner of a pro minor league team called Coney Island Thunder.
“Mentoring and education in the community is the backbone and the mission for this whole program. We want to get the youth involved,” he said.
In an announcement made exclusively to CBS New York’s Hannah Kliger, McLaughlin also introduced the community to the team’s coach, high school and college basketball star Maurice Brown.
“My senior year I was able to win New York Newsday Player of the Year,” Brown recalls of his basketball career in the ’90s.
Both men, Coney Island natives, embark on a new journey to create a team from scratch, trying to be thoughtful about the unique field of opportunity here.
“We want to do youth programs, we want to do basketball clinics. We want to teach the kids from the beginning how to play the game right, sportsmanship,” Mclaughlin explains. “Build a relationship in the community, relationship with the kids.”
The team will be playing under the American Basketball Association, and will be one of two teams in New York City — the only in Brooklyn. They will train and play home games at Kingsborough Community College’s seaside campus. It’s an unprecedented partnership with the Athletic Department, run by Bobby Allison.
“Not everybody’s going to make NBA, but a lot of kids go overseas, and now that doesn’t have to be the endgame. They can stay here in front of their friends and family and play right here at home and be a professional player,” Allison says.
They have a busy summer ahead of them. Tryouts start in mid-July and run through September. That’s when training will begin. They hope to play their first season in November. And they don’t have to look far for quality players, given the list of homegrown talent from their own backyard.
“We have pros here,” Mclaughlin says. “Stephon Marbury, Lance Stephenson, Sebastian Telfair, Isaiah Whitehead, Quincy Douby, Norman Richardson, Chris Taft… From this small area which is in Coney Island, from Surf, Mermaid, Neptune and Brighton Beach, we have a tremendous amount of talent.”
Maybe there’s something in the water.
Click here for a schedule of the summer tryouts.
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