July 24, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Chestnut Hill’s Mr. Basketball
From his Hill House apartment, Sidney Goldstein dispenses basketball fundamentals in newly revised books.
by PETE MAZZACCARO

Sidney Goldstein learned to play basketball on Philadelphia playgrounds. (Photo by Erin Vertreace)

Chestnut Hill doesn’t seem like the neighborhood for someone known as Mr. Basketball, but Sidney Goldstein, author of the much-heralded The Basketball Player’s Bible and the The Basketball Coach’s Bible calls the Hill House on W. Evergreen Avenue home.

From his high-rise apartment, Goldstein, 60, operates his one-man basketball publishing empire, Nitty-Gritty Basketball Series. He has completed 14 instructional videos, all edited on his personal Mac computer.  It was also here that he completed revised, second editions of his comprehensive compendiums of basketball fundamentals, which have been in print since 1994.

“Financially this is the most idiotic thing someone could do,” Goldstein said in a recent interview, waving his hand in the air. “I can’t believe I’ve been making money on this.”

But he has. The franchise has been successful, at least successful enough to allow Goldstein, a former Philadelphia Public School teacher, to make his living doing nothing but work on the series and the videos, posted on his Web site, mrbasketball.net.

Goldstein gained his basketball expertise on the playgrounds of Philadelphia in Wynnefield where he grew up. He was good enough to make the team at Overbrook High School, a basketball powerhouse that produced Wilt Chamberlain, Walt Hazzard, Mike Gale and Wali Jones. Overbrook won the public city championship — in which the public champion played the Catholic school champion — in ‘54, ‘55, ‘57, ’58 and 59.

“I started playing in junior high school,” Goldstein recalled. “I ended up being a very good player, but not interested in playing pro ball or even basketball in college …  My only real aspiration in terms of basketball was to make the team at Overbrook.. I was there from ‘60 to ‘63. All the guys on that team were very good.”

Goldtstein would go on to college to study engineering. Basketball wasn’t his focus but it remained a big part of his life during his undergraduate and graduate school career. He got a degree in bio-engineering and took a fellowship to a school in Rochester but did it more, he said, to keep himself out of the Vietnam War. He decided medical research wasn’t for him.

 Eventually, he started teaching in Providence, Rhode Island and while he was there, he began helping to coach the school’s basketball team.

“Everywhere I taught, people knew I was a good ball player,” he said. “So I was always asked to help coach.”

He would keep his hands in coaching when he came home to teach at West Philadelphia High School. While there, he took on the girls’ team and realized that the kids couldn’t play, they didn’t know the game the way he and the people he played with at Overbrook High School knew the game.

“The kids didn’t have a clue how to play basketball,” Goldstein said.  “I read books, went to clinics. … It was very, very frustrating… so I had to figure out my own way. It’s not that I wanted to, I was as lazy as anybody else but I wanted to teach these kids to play basketball.”

Instead, he began to develop his own methods, focusing on ways to drill the most basic fundamental skills into his players. Instead of focusing on plays, he’d make sure his players knew, really knew, how to dribble, pass and shoot.

His efforts paid off. His girls’ team won the city and public league championship. And then went on to beat the best girls’ team in New York City in 1980.

“That year they had a game called the Liberty Apple Classic,” he said. “And we beat the best team from NY.

But teaching was starting to burn Goldstein out.

“I was out of place,” Goldstein said of teaching at Philadelphia Public Schools. “I didn’t really like it. It was the place where I was. I liked teaching.

“In Philadelphia, it’s really easy to get into a situation where you hate teaching. The kids are difficult to begin with; they’re very undereducated, and the staff, for the most part, doesn’t want to be bothered with the kids. They want to retire, basically — they want to be boss. The kids are the last thing they want to consider. There were some good people around, but they were hard to find.”

It was then, in late ’88 and early ’89 that he decided to get to work on a book about basketball fundamentals. He quit teaching for a while, but needed to work and earn money so he went back to work at a school, teaching during the day and working on the book at night.

After working this way for a few years he finished two books and sent them out to publishers

“I sent the books out to publishers and they thought they were good, but nobody would publish them,” Goldstein said. “So I had to self-publish. So I started my own publishing company; I hired people, designers and editors. The money came from teaching. As a matter of fact I was teaching for a year or two before the books came out and I was almost down to nothing. Designing the covers alone cost $9,000.

Soon, Barnes and Noble picked up the books and began selling them. And since then, Goldstein’s Nitty Gritty series has been in print. “It sold and that’s what kept me going,” he said.

Goldstein said the biggest market for his books aren’t big college coaches, but high school and independent public league coaches. Most of the college coaches, he said, don’t take the time to teach the skills he outlines in his books.

“The coaches, unfortunately, they just don’t have a clue,” he said.  “That’s why you see teams playing the way they play. These teams have great talent but it needs to be developed. Coaches spend all their time recruiting and they don’t understand the nature of coaching. That’s what I keep trying to explain.”

That’s where Goldstein’s books and videos come in. His new books, his first reworking of the books after 14 years in print, include better directions than the originals and more cartoons. That’s right. Cartoons. Stick figure cartoons drawn by Goldstein.

“Some people don’t like the cartoons,” Goldstein said with a shrug. “But the coaches I’ve talked to really like them. So I’ve kept them in.

Even though his new editions are done and his 14 videos are for sale, Goldstein said he doesn’t see himself taking a break.

“It’s what keeps me busy, He said.