Known to the hoop world as “The Soul of Five-Star Basketball Camp,” Marv Kessler passed away in September of 2012 at the age of 80. This Saturday, more than a year after losing his battle to cancer, the New York City basketball community will celebrate his life with a dedicated ceremony and basketball showcase at Martin Van Buren High School in Queens, where he once coached for nine seasons before becoming the head coach at Adelphi University. The basketball guru played at Boys High School in Brooklyn and later at North Carolina State in 1950s. He served as a scout in the NBA for the Detroit Pistons, Washington Bullets, Portland Trail Blazers and Sacramento Kings, while also having coached at the professional level in Israel, Egypt and Venezuela. Yet, it is his time as an instructor at the highly-touted Five Star Basketball Camp for over three decades that he’s predominantly known for, where he taught the likes of Patrick Ewing, Stephon Marbury, Tim Thomas, and Ron Artest, among many others. This YouTube video shows Kessler at Five Star, instructing high schoolers and emphasizing the ever-important fundamentals. For any basketball fan in the area, it might be an event worth checking out.
