SAN ANTONIO — Even 40 years later, Lou Carnesecca would be at a loss for words when he tried to describe the first time he saw the beanpole from Inwood.
“He was a sophomore,” Looie remembered, “and he looked in the face like he was about 12 years old. And then he started to play. And you couldn’t take your eyes off him. I mean, literally. He was the only person in the whole gym.”
Carnesecca was long retired by then but the old coach’s eyes filled with wonder, even in his 90s, remembering a kid named Lew Alcindor who would grow into a man named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
“Only a few players were ever like that. Connie Hawkins was the first. He could be playing a game with six other kids good enough to play big-time college ball; didn’t matter. You watched the Hawk. Later on, when he was in high school, Patrick Ewing was like that. You could drop a Martian into the gym and he’d recognize that what Patrick was doing was pretty special.”
