Where Are They Now: Steve Nisenson, Men's Basketball

Recruited out of Livingston High School in Livingston, New Jersey, Steve Nisenson joined the Hofstra men’s basketball team in 1962 and would go on to become one of the top players in program history. Nisenson suited up for Hofstra for three years, helping the Flying Dutchmen a regional championship at the 1964 NCAA Small College Tournament.

Nisenson led the team in scoring in each of his three seasons at Hofstra, and helped lead the team to two NCAA Division II Tournament appearances. At the time, his scoring average of 27.7 points per game during the 1963-64 season was the second-highest in school history. He received All-America recognition for his performance during the 1962-63 and 1963-64 seasons for Hofstra, and was unanimously selected as the MVP of the Middle Atlantic Conference northern college division in 1964.

Upon his graduation in 1965, Nisenson stood as the record-holder for points scored in a career at Hofstra with 2,222, a record that would stand for 43 years until it was broken in 2008. Nisenson also holds Hofstra records for most free throws made in a season (230, 1963-64) and in a game (20 vs. Lycoming), free throw shooting percentage in a season (91.3%, 1963-64) and ranks second in scoring average for a career (26.8).

Nisenson was selected in the fifth round of the 1965 NBA Draft by the New York Knicks, but did not play. He joined the coaching staff at Hofstra as an assistant from 1966-69. Nisenson played for Team USA at the 1965 Maccabiah Games in Tel Aviv, Israel and won the gold medal. He later earned his master’s degree in guidance and counseling from C.W. Post in 1972 before spending the next 16 years working in the admissions office at Post.

In 2002, Nisenson was named to the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and he was named to the Hofstra Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006. His uniform was retired by Hofstra during the 2008-09 season, making him one of five former Hofstra men’s basketball players to receive the honor.

Following his time in Admissions at Post, Nisenson began a 40-year career as a basketball instructor and later camp director until his retirement in 2018.

What made you decide to attend Hofstra?

Interestingly enough, I played in an all-star tournament at Rutgers University in early August after my senior year of high school, and I had already been committed to Temple University and Harry Litwick, the basketball coach at the time. Back in those days, there were no national signing days or these big ceremonies announcing where you’re attending school. After I had finished playing in the tournament, some guy came up to me and he asked me what my plans were. I told him I was planning on going to Temple, and he asked me if I had ever heard of Hofstra. I said to him “frankly no, I haven’t.”

The man introduced himself as Butch van Breda Kolff, and he asked if I would consider coming out to see the campus and the school. I said to him that I already had a commitment to Temple and he said “Well why don’t you just come out to the campus and visit for the weekend?” So I went home and spoke to my dad, told him that I had met coach van Breda Kolff and that he wanted me to come out to the campus, and my dad said told me that I had nothing to lose by taking the train and visiting the campus. I took the train from Newark, New Jersey, to Penn Station in New York City, and Butch met me at the Hempstead Train Station. I get in the car, and sitting in the backseat is Carl Braun, who was a pretty famous New York Knicks player; Butch was very good friends with him and lived in Garden City. 

I spent the weekend, played a lot of basketball with the Schwartz family, who was hosting me on my visit, and I remember Butch being a very charismatic coach who was fun to be around. When I returned home, I went to my father and said that maybe it was better to go to a smaller school rather than a large school like Temple. My father was behind my completely behind my decision, and I remember one of the toughest things I had to do was call coach Litwick at Temple and tell him that I had changed my mind was going to be attending Hofstra. 

As it turned out, I would say it was the greatest decision I ever made in my entire life.

What is your favorite memory from your time at Hofstra?

When I came to Hofstra, we had a freshmen team because you weren’t allowed to play on the varsity team as a freshman. I’ll never forget the end of my first semester at Hofstra; I was in the registrar’s office and I bumped into Paul Lynner, who was my freshman coach. It was the end of the semester and he called me over wanting to talk for a moment. We went outside and he told me to take a look at my transcript, which he was holding. It wasn’t a great transcript, and he very clearly told me that if I wanted to continue playing basketball at Hofstra, then I would have to start doing better in the classroom.

I left the registrar pretty shaken, to say the least, but it was an eye-opener for me. That conversation turned me around, academically; now I knew where I had to focus in addition to the basketball, and it lead to me getting a lot more out of my college education at Hofstra. After we had that one-way discussion, it lit a fire under me and changed a lot of things for me.

You held the program record for points in a career for over 40 years. What did it mean to set that record and hold onto that record for so long?

I look back on that and reflect on a lot of hard work, and playing with some terrific people. You don’t score all those points by playing with selfish people. I played with a lot of unselfish players that were more concerned with winning, and they knew I had a talent to score baskets and it worked out. The timing was great, allowing me to play with some truly terrific players, and great people.

When the record was broken after 43 years, I was happy for Antoine Agudio. They say records are meant to be broken. My wife, when it happened, she would say “yeah, but you did it in three years and you did it in four years! You averaged 26 points a game and they averaged 19, there should be an asterisk.” She was certainly a little biased, but I was happy for Antoine and happy for the guys that came after him and surpassed him. It set the bar pretty high and gave something for these guys to shoot for. 

You still hold a number of free throw records at Hofstra. What was the key to your success as a free throw shooter?

I led the nation in free throw shooting my junior year, and I do remember a very dear friend of mine was a sports writer for Newsday and he came to cover one of our games. The game that he covered, I think I was 20-22 from the free throw line, and he ended the article by saying that my free throw percentage dropped because I missed two shots. It’s an honor to hold those records, and hopefully one day someone will break them.

From the time I was 13, which is when I started playing, until I stopped formally playing when I was 23, I don’t think there were 50 days in 10 years where I didn’t shoot a basketball; I didn’t care if it rained, snowed, if there was ice on the ground. When my parents moved to Livingston, the first thing my father did was put up this rickety backboard that he built himself in the driveway. Every waking hour, when I wasn’t in the park playing or in some gym, I was out there shooting a basketball. Twelve at night, one in the morning, eight in the morning, it didn’t matter; once I started to play, basketball became a passion for me. I just loved the feel of the basketball in my hand. As a matter of fact, Lew Freifeld, another former Hofstra men’s basketball player and a close friend of mine, said that I was allergic to leather because of how quickly I got the ball out of my hand. 

In your junior year at Hofstra, you helped lead the team to a regional championship in the Division II NCAA Small College Tournament. How did it feel to win a championship for Hofstra?

It was amazing! It was something that was a goal of ours as we started that season. We lost some games, but we knew that that was our mission to make it to the championship, and we put a lot of hard work. There was a tremendous amount of comradery among everyone on the team, guys truly liked each other, and we shared going through the ups and downs of a long season. We had a lot of success, and because we had that goal from the start and the support from the coaches, we were able to make that a reality.

We were winning a lot of games and getting a lot of accolades from the New York area through the newspapers, and we were recognized as one of the top teams in the country, which kept us going. We couldn’t wait to get to practice and we didn’t want to leave practice, and I think I speak for all of us it was time well spent together. There was a lot of bonding, and a lot of ‘I’ve got your back’ kind of stuff.

I still talk to a lot the guys from that team. Basketball was one thing, but the friendships were something that will last a lifetime.

What was it like to be drafted by the New York Knicks?

It was exciting. They had scouts at our games; I remember Dick McGuire coming to a number of games during my senior year, and I was excited and looking forward to it. It was a great time, and unfortunately, my career ended when I was cut, but I have zero regrets. If I had to do it all over again today, I wouldn’t change one thing. 

I was excited, I had twice been named All-America my junior and senior year, joining guys like Willis Reed, Lucious Jackson, Jerry Sloan, who all turned out to be great NBA players. It was an honor to be among their company.

You were a member of the United States basketball team at the 1965 Maccabiah Games and won a gold medal. What was it like to represent your country on the international stage?

It was a very exciting time. International basketball, at that time, wasn’t very good. We would dominate game by as many as 50 points, and we could’ve run up the score a lot more. The United States was very advanced with its basketball and a lot of other countries weren’t.

Being Jewish, going to Israel was an amazing experience. We had trained for about 10 days in France leading up it, and when we traveled to Israel I had some French money with me. I went to a bank to exchange the French money for Israeli money, and after waiting in line and I got to the teller. I went to exchange the money, saying I was here for the Maccabiah Games, and she said I had to speak to the bank manager about that. She pointed me to his office at the back of the bank, and I went to his office to make the exchange. 

While that was getting taken care of, he asked me how I liked Israel, and I told him it seemed nice after only arriving the day before. He asked if I would consider staying in Israel, and I was a young man at the time so I was at least considering it. He hands me a phone and says “why don’t you call your mother and tell her you’re not coming home. We need you, not your money.” Here I was, innocently going into a bank just looking to exchange some money, and he was adamant that I stay in Israel. 

And funny enough, I met a family that had befriended me during the Games, and they invited me into their home for meals and whatnot. I kept a relationship with them, and they invited me back in 1968. I came back and spent a week with them, and it was a wonderful experience.

How did you get involved with the office of admissions at C.W. Post?

It was kind of a freak thing. A friend of mine by the name of Herb Brown was a basketball coach at C.W. Post, and I had known him through basketball. Right after I was cut by the Knicks, I had coached basketball at Hofstra for a few years as the freshmen coach, and decided that since I was getting married and that coaching wasn’t the right thing for me at the time. I was out every night and on the road recruiting, going to games and spending late nights. As much as I loved basketball, I had just gotten married and wanted to make a career change; I loved the coaching part, just not the recruiting part.

Because we were friends, Herb told me of a position opening up at Post in the admissions office as an admissions counselors. One thing led to another and my wife and I decided we wanted to get our master’s degrees and if I took a job at Post, we would get our degrees for free. I did that, and a number of years later, I was offered the job as the Director of Admissions.

How did you become involved with the Camp Wayne For Boys in Pennsylvania?

I was looking for a summer camp for my son and I knew of somebody who owned a well-recognized summer camp in Pennsylvania. I had called him and told him that I wanted to talk with him about the camp for the summer and we had a nice conversation, and I called him back and signed up my son. A few days later, he called me back and asked if I would be interested in coming to the camp for a long weekend and doing some basketball clinics for the kids. I said sure and I went for the weekend, and we had an absolute ball.

He called me back the next year and asked if I could come for a week to do more basketball clinics. I went there for a week, and the next year he asks if I could come in for two weeks, slowly reeling me in. Ultimately, it must’ve been three years after that when I got a call from him asking to meet with me to see if I was interested in joining on a full-time basis. We worked out a great arrangement for everyone, and it became a 40-year career, and I’ve loved every minute of it!

How did it feel to be inducted into the Hofstra Athletics Hall of Fame and the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame?

First of all, it was a phenomenal honor to be included with all the great athletes at Hofstra, for one, and all the great athletes that happen to be Jewish like Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg, Dolph Schayes… it’s something I never, ever dreamed of. To be considered among the kind of people in both Halls of Fame, those are things you never think of growing up. I guess it’s the result of a lot of hard work, some luck, being at the right place at the right time, and having a good support system.

You had your number retired by Hofstra retired during the 2008-09 season. What was it like for you to receive that honor?

That was amazing. When you’re growing up, you read how they retired this guy’s number and how no one will wear Jackie Robinson’s number again… not that I’m putting myself in the same class as Jackie Robinson! But the idea of having something that you wore will never be worn again where you played is an amazing feeling.

The day it happened, I was feeling sky high! My family was so proud and my friends… it’s an indescribable feeling, really. You don’t ever think of anything like that, and when it happens, it’s an incredibly humbling and blessed feeling. I’m just so fortunate that I has the opportunity to do what I do. It all goes back to that one decision, like I said, that changed my life. It was the greatest decision of my life to choose the path at Hofstra than anywhere else.

What does it mean to you to be a part of the Hofstra family?

It’s an honor, truly an honor. I have such great, warm feelings from my time at Hofstra. My whole life has come back to that point, and people see me on the street and ask if I’m Steve Nisenson because of everything I did at Hofstra.

I was in a restaurant here in Florida a year or two years ago around the holiday season. I was in a restaurant with my family and there was a TV on in the corner of the restaurant, and there was a family at the next table. They had gotten up and the gentleman was waiting to pay the bill, and I could see him watching Villanova on the TV. I could see he was rooting for Villanova. I go up to him and ask if he was a fan, and he said that he was from Philadelphia and that he follows their basketball team. I say to him that a friend of mine is the head coach at Villanova. He asks if I’m friends with Jay Wright, and I say that I am and I went to Hofstra, and that he was the coach there for a number of years. 

The man tells me that he remembered a player there in the early to mid-60s who was one of the greatest shooters that ever played the game. I played along and said “yeah? Who’s that?”, and he said it was Steve Nisenson and that he saw him play in the Palestra and against Saint Joseph's. He was going on and on, and then finally my wife and kids were starting to laugh, and I said to him “I heard he wasn’t that good,” and then he looked at me and said “don’t tell me you’re Steve Nisenson.” We had a good laugh together, and he said to me that it was an honor to be able to talk with you. I get a call from him the next day, asking to have lunch, and I eventually had breakfast with him.

Things like that, and countless other encounters and stories I have, all stem from my decision to attend Hofstra.

What is some advice you would give to a current student-athlete at Hofstra?

After your career is over as a student-athlete, don’t look in the mirror and say “I wish I had done things differently.” You can’t get those days back, and if you give 100% every day, whether it’s in the classroom, on the field or the court, and you can look in the mirror and say that you gave it your all, you’ll never have any regrets.