Recently, the Bronx High School of Science mourned the loss of its legendary boys basketball coach, Ralph Bacote, who passed away on Feb. 7.
Up until this season, Bacote had coached the Bronx Science boys for the past 31 years.
Aside from his tenure at Bronx Science, Bacote left behind a legacy of his playing days as a New York City basketball legend.
He tore up the court as a high schooler at DeWitt Clinton, played college ball at Northern Illinois, and attracted the interest of the Atlanta Hawks and European teams. His prominence as a shooter earned him the nickname “The Durango Kid.” As a freshman at Northern Illinois, Bacote averaged mind-boggling 40 points a game.
Sammell Brown, the current head coach at Bronx Science, said Bacote was the “ultimate factor” in Brown’s decision to coach at Bronx Science rather than Franklin D. Roosevelt High, a notable basketball school. Brown said he reached out to Bacote while he was still coaching at the Eagle Academy for Young Men. During the summer of 2009, the two formed a close friendship. “I wanted to learn what he was giving to the kids,” Brown said.
Bacote added a “sense of toughness” to the Bronx Science basketball program, Brown said. He often brought his players to Manhattan’s street ball Mecca, Rucker Park, his old stomping grounds and home to a legendary court that has seen the likes of Pee Wee Kirkland, Julius Erving, and Wilt Chamberlain.
‘’There’s the myth that smart kids can’t be good athletes,’’ Coach Bacote told the New York Times in 2000 during a particularly successful season. ‘’But we smashed the myth.’’
When his health began to wane toward the end of the summer, Bacote asked Brown to step up as the team’s head coach. He wanted to remain an active part of the team, and planned to return as head coach next season. When Bacote missed Bronx Science’s last regular season game against Alfred E. Smith, Brown thought little of it. He was unaware that his friend and mentor had slipped into a coma that he would not come out of.
Bronx Science will surely remember Coach Bacote this week as they enter the city playoffs seeded 33rd, just the type of odds Bacote would relish.
“He did so much for the Bronx,” Brown said. “He needs to be recognized.”
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