Did anyone notice a 79-year-old man with coffee and a paper sitting in his car, waiting for the doors to Bronx Science to open on most early mornings this winter? Well, that was Bronx Science’s newest Boys Varsity Basketball Assistant Coach, Howard Adelson, or Coach Pops for short. Why would this older gentleman take a job as an Assistant Coach instead of fleeing South to a warmer climate? Well, there are a few reasons.
The first reason is his love of basketball. Howie Adelson came roaring out of retirement this year to help coach the Bronx Science Boys Varsity Basketball team alongside Head Coach Robert Massimi. For two years, as he watched from the sidelines, Adelson thought that some minor changes could make big improvements. After the 2023-24 season, Coach Massimi decided to ask Adelson if he would be willing to assist.
Since taking over the Bronx Science Boys’ Varsity Basketball team, Coach Massimi has worked to elevate the program by bringing in shooting coaches, data analytics, video, and now recruiting an expert like Coach Howie Adelson out of retirement. According to Coach Massimi, he always admired Howie’s suggestions, and thought he was classy and knowledgeable. “I got to know Howie over the last two seasons, when he came to our games. I came to learn that he’s a legendary New York City coach with PSAL ties and connected to various basketball institutions like the Five-Star Basketball Camp. I saw an opportunity to bring him back into the game and have someone I could share thoughts and ideas with to help the team daily. Over time, we got to talk about basketball and fundamentals. We had a good team at Bronx Science and wanted to get the most out of it. We developed a great friendship as a result of our collaboration. He’s old-school, but nonetheless, we learned from each other and shared ideas with each other. We adopted modern techniques such as film and data analytics for development this year. We talked all the time on the phone, and we would spend time before, during, and after practices and games talking about every detail, in order to improve the team–including scouting other teams and setting up many exhibition games,” Massimi said.
While Coach Massimi’s teams have improved each year, the 2024-2025 Winter season was the first time that the Bronx Science Boys’ Varsity Basketball team has dominated their division. They finished 7-5 and 8-6 respectively during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, and were projected to win around 50% of their games again this year. Coach Pops, as the team nicknamed him, helped lead the Wolverines in 2024-2025 to a 12-2 division record, good enough to tie for first place. They had their first 20-win season in over 25 years. Before the February 2025 Winter Break, the Boys Varsity Basketball team was 16-1, one of the best records in Bronx Science’s history. They won a borough playoff game and a city-wide playoff game; both are milestones that Bronx Science had not accomplished during the past 25 years. This was one of the most successful seasons that the Bronx Science basketball program has ever seen.
As Coach Pops said, “I began coaching as the varsity basketball coach at Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx during the 1968-69 season at the age of 23, making me the youngest varsity basketball coach in the PSAL in New York City at that time. Our teams won 2 city championships in the first 6 years, which is quite a feat. I also coached the New York City entry in the United States Youth Games during the 1972-75 tournaments, winning two gold and one silver medal.”
A decorated guard at Columbus, Adelson had many scholarship offers, including from the University of Pennsylvania. Adelson, however, did not have many advisors, as his parents were highly focused on their jobs. His dad owned a local fountain shop where he spent at least 14 hours a day, six days a week, while his mom was busy selling bonds for Israel. Neither even knew he played basketball in high school. So, he followed his high school coach and some of his friends on a full ride scholarship to play basketball for Long Island University. Following his four years at LIU, Adelson began his coaching career at Christopher Columbus High School, in charge of kids just a few years younger than him. The rest is history; he became a Bronx coaching legend and mentor.
As a talented athlete in his own right, Adelson has a knack for spotting talent in others. One of his old high school coaches from Christopher Columbus High School, who got Adelson his first job out of college, is now 93 and a close friend. Wille Klein, founder of the Five-Star Basketball Camp, remembers when Adelson held school tryouts during his rookie season in 1968-69, “I went to the gym, and he had a little four-foot-eleven inch kid on the court, and he told me that he was keeping him on the team. I responded, ‘What! Are you crazy?’ That kid was Ray Jones, who went on to be an All-American point guard at the University of North Dakota and even received an invite to play for the Harlem Globetrotters.”
Adelson was a great basketball player and successful coach, but perhaps his biggest accomplishment came off the court. He was responsible for setting many underserved youths on the right path to leading successful lives.
Another reason that Coach Pops accepted Massimi’s offer was because Adelson loves mentoring and teaching kids. Being a Caucasian basketball coach in the Bronx in the late 1960’s and 70’s was an unconventional choice, but Adelson was determined to make a difference for those less fortunate. He knew that sports taught life lessons that would benefit kids in so many ways. He was a competitive, strict, school-first coach who gave his players responsibility and held them accountable. For Adelson, his players were family, and he wanted them to feel comfortable talking to him about anything. He promoted leadership, giving his captains the freedom to run practices and call plays during the game.
Adelson would literally do anything for his players, even housing one when his mother insisted that he quit school so he could work to help provide for his 8 other siblings. However, Coach Pops had other plans for Ray Jones. Adelson pleaded with Ray’s mother, saying he was good enough to play in college, which could help lead him to a better life. When she dug in her heels and said he wasn’t going to school if he lived under her roof, Adelson and his wife Beverly took him into their own home. Ray Jones is now the head women’s basketball coach at the University of North Dakota.
Adelson and Jones remain very close. In Jones’ words, “Adelson used to coach us hard, make us tough physically and mentally. Our team was a reflection of him. He gets really into it. The thing about him is he saved a lot of kids in our neighborhood that would have otherwise went the wrong way. Some of us took advantage of the education–some of us took it seriously. He was more than a coach. He was a teacher, not just in basketball, relating it to life, but also for some of us, he was a big brother or father figure, because most of us didn’t have good dads. He was and always will be loved by his players for all of the kindness that he gave to all of us. Because of him, I became a college player, a teacher, and a coach, with a beautiful family and 10 grandkids.”
Another of his players, Dudley Biggs, credits Coach Adelson for completely changing the trajectory of his life. Howie kept Biggs in line and made sure he got the proper education while pursuing his basketball dreams. Biggs is now a teacher, taking after his old coach.
Biggs said, “Coach Adelson set goals for you and he was not going to allow you to compromise them. I flunked off the team as a sophomore, and it was the most difficult time of my life. I just assumed that he was going to help me out, that he was going to change the standards so that I could play, but it was never even a discussion. He made sure that I did my school work and focused on my academics. It was really difficult, because at that time, all the city athletes knew each other, and I could recall people on the subway knowing and telling me that I was ineligible to play. So, I knew I had to do something about it. It was a life lesson. Because I had to work hard to play again, when I had academic difficulty later down the road, I knew I could do it, and I did. Coach Adelson’s act of holding me accountable at such a young age made a huge difference. He always got us back on track. If he compromised his principles, I would have never developed that skill. I’ve always appreciated that lesson.”
Biggs continued, “Coach Adelson gave me the knowledge to understand that you could make a great living doing the right thing and playing by societal rules, and that you don’t have to mess around in the grey area. There are many more options out there that sometimes you may not recognize. Because of him, some doors opened that didn’t open for some other kids I know who didn’t go to Columbus. One of my best friends told me that he was jealous of me, and I’m thinking it’s because of my car, or the girls, but he said, no, I’m not jealous of you because of that. I’m jealous of you because you had the Coach. There’s no telling what my life would have been like if I had the Coach. And I was blown away.”
Dudley Biggs recalled returning after a long road game. Everyone was hungry, and Coach Adelson had the bus stop at a deli. Coach Adelson then proceeded to buy sandwiches for everyone, including the cheerleaders, the managers, and the bus driver. “Nobody had ever done that for us. That was the best tasting hero sandwich that I’ve ever had. I now give out a dollar for a 95+ and five for a 100, and throw a birthday party for every kid,” Biggs said.
According to Mike Bright, a former captain, he only needs one word to describe his former coach. Coach Adelson is “amazing.” Bright continued, “Adelson came into a South Bronx community, and none of us saw ourselves in college or anything like that. Coach had a plan that none of us did. We just followed his script. He’s changed a lot of lives in a major way, such as the resources that he made available to us.” Mike Bright went on to star at the University of New Orleans and is still very close with Coach Adelson.
Coach Adelson continues to influence Mike Bright. Bright is still giving back to the community by starting his own youth organization and volunteering his time, using his knowledge and contacts to help young athletes succeed. In fact, more than 80% of Coach Adelson’s former players are now either teachers or working with kids!
Coach Adelson had a plan. He wanted all of his kids to graduate from high school and continue on to college. He would do anything to help them. However, Coach Pops is fiercely competitive and he would recruit players from the neighborhood and get them to transfer to Christopher Columbus High School. At that time, Dewitt Clinton High School had a powerhouse Boys’ Varsity Basketball team, and Howie wanted players that could help challenge them.
The final reason for Coach Adelson’s return to coaching at Bronx Science during the 2024-2025 academic year was to make sure his grandson, the author of this article, could have the best senior year possible. And Coach Adelson did just that, as he was the missing ingredient that led to the Bronx Science Boys’ Varsity Basketball team having their first 20 win season since the year 2000. Coach Adelson shared his passion and enthusiasm for the game with the whole squad, and everyone bought into Coach Pops’ style of basketball.
Coach Adelson calls the opportunity that Coach Massimi gave him, “a gift from God.”For me, personally, there are no words to fully encapsulate what this season has meant having my grandfather as coach for my last season as a Wolverine. How many grandfather/grandson pairs have been fortunate enough to experience something like this? Not only has he inspired me on the court, but his generous and compassionate nature is something for us all to aspire to. Thank you for a historic season, Coach Pops. We will remember it for the rest of our lives.
