In the Grip of the Game : 49ers Assistant Coach Cheerfully Concedes He’s a Slave to Basketball

Basketball has long been Seth Greenberg’s addiction, consuming him since he was a youngster in Plainview, N.Y., shoveling snow off his driveway court. Now, on the verge of 33, he remains in the game’s grip, which is tighter than ever.

“The only reason I picked the college I went to (Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, N.J.) is because the coach practiced seven days a week,” said Greenberg, who as associate head coach at Cal State Long Beach is Joe Harrington’s top assistant.

Greenberg loves basketball to the extent, he said, that, “maybe it’s a vice . . . but there are a lot worse vices.”

A company that develops shopping centers tried to lure Greenberg and his selling ability a few years ago in Florida when he was an assistant coach at the University of Miami. “They guaranteed I would make major-league dollars,” he said. “But I was afraid I wouldn’t enjoy it as much as I do this.”

“It’s hard to get over that feeling you get, like from a win over Vegas,” he added, referring to Long Beach’s victory last season at Nevada Las Vegas. “I can’t imagine that feeling in another business.”

Drumming Up Fans

One morning last week, Greenberg was the guest speaker at a class on the history and culture of sport. He tried to persuade the students to come to the 49ers’ game that night. As enticement, he diagrammed plays on the chalkboard and gave a scouting report on the opponent, University of the Pacific.

Although still sleepy at 9 a.m., the students were amused by Greenberg’s nonstop chatter and jesting, delivered in a voice that affirmed his New York upbringing.

Not all of them, however, seemed inclined to either attend the game or enthusiastically embrace the team, a stance Greenberg perceived as apathy. He tried to rouse them from it.

“It would cost $8 a semester for each student to have a new arena built here,” he said. “That’s nothing for what it would do to this campus. How many beers is that? I guarantee every person in this room will waste $8 this week.”

When that failed to yield a reaction that satisfied him, he told the class: “The bottom line is that in the next four years we will be a Top 20 team with or without you students.”

He Enjoys Teaching

Later in the morning, Greenberg taught a techniques-of-basketball class in the gym. Wearing a blue warm-up suit, he showed students, many en route to degrees in physical education, how to throw a bounce pass.

“They get credit for this,” he said afterward, conceding with a laugh that what had just transpired, incredulously, was part of higher education.

“I enjoy teaching,” he went on, “but it takes six hours (a week) away from watching film, seeing recruits, writing letters . . . things you are evaluated on. You take pride in teaching, but if we don’t win basketball games we’re not going to be here very long.”

When Greenberg returned to his small office, he picked up the telephone, which is what he always does. He dialed a travel agent.

“In Utah, I want a big car because I have to drive through snow,” he said as arrangements were made for a recruiting trip.

Recruiting is Greenberg’s specialty, and he immerses himself in it. A day or night rarely passes in which he does not visit a high school or see a game.

“A good part of our job is sales, selling a kid on Long Beach and Joe Harrington, selling him on how to play the game,” Greenberg said. “We work hard at developing relationships with a kid, to the point where that kid can’t tell you no.”

The result has been a contingent of top players--from high schools, junior colleges and universities--who will join the 49ers next fall.

One of them is Frankie Edwards, whom Greenberg recruited out of Millikan High School.

“He’s made me want to go to class; I know he cares about me,” said Edwards, who sat out this season under Proposition 48, which requires that potential Division I college athletes earn a minimum score on entrance examinations.

Greenberg’s outgoing personality and his relentless style make him a natural recruiter, but do not always endear him to everyone in his profession. “Some people are offended by my aggressiveness,” he admitted.

Greenberg and Harrington have been friends for 15 years and are both in their second season at Cal State Long Beach. The 49ers are 11-11 with five games remaining in the regular season. Last year their record was 17-12, with a National Invitational Tournament appearance.

“Some head coaches don’t allow an assistant any leeway,” Harrington said. “They run the whole show. I’ve always let my assistants have a lot of responsibility. An assistant has to work hard and have a love for the game and for young people. Seth is A-plus in all those. He’ll be a very good head coach one day. He certainly has paid his dues.”

In Greenberg’s background are assistant jobs at Miami, the University of Virginia and the University of Pittsburgh, and 20 years of experience--as a player, counselor and teacher--at the prestigious Five-Star Camp in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

“He’s an excellent coach, a fine teacher and a great organizer,” camp director Howard Garfinkel said from his home in New York City. “He was an average college player; he didn’t have great talent but worked very hard at the game. You could see he was born to be a coach.”

Greenberg strives for a head coaching job, and waits patiently for his chance.

“I love working here,” he said. “I’d never leave for an assistant coaching position. I have as good a relationship with Joe as any assistant has with his head coach. I don’t feel stifled.”

Thus, Greenberg does not hesitate to make himself heard at practice. Profanity punctuates his tirades. He can ride a player unmercifully.

‘A Great Motivator’

“He’s a fired-up guy, a great motivator,” said center John Hatten, to whom Greenberg has been like a father. “He’s got an attitude about him--if he’s in a bad mood, look out. He uses abusive language regularly, but that’s just part of his vocabulary.”

Although Greenberg was a 6-foot guard, he works mostly with the 49er big men.

“He’s helped my game,” Hatten said. “He can score on any of us at will. He’s very good with fundamental moves.”

Greenberg said that the tough-guy approach is often necessary.

“When they cross the line (to go on the court), you are all business,” he said. “You have to push and prod and motivate guys in different ways. Off the court no grudges are held, they kid me about my bald head. Once practice is over I don’t have to scold them unless they didn’t go to class. Without the relationship we develop with them off the court, there would be no way you could drive them hard because they would know you didn’t care about them.”

Being totally involved is a requirement for success in college basketball, Greenberg believes. To him, success means getting into the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament.

Such extreme dedication, he said, also requires the right wife.

“He was gone for three days after our first date in Miami,” said Karen Greenberg, who, as a prosthetist, makes artificial limbs. “You have to get used to it quickly. It’s his total life, basketball 24 hours a day. The phone rings until at least midnight almost every night. It’s tough. You have to be pretty patient and understanding. There are a lot of high ups and really low downs. But I love it.”

Her husband said that marriage and becoming a father--Paige Greenberg is nine months old--have mellowed him.

“It changes how long things stay with me,” he said. “In the past there were no escapes. Now, we can play poorly or lose a recruit and I can go home and see the baby and realize life goes on.”

Greenberg often gets home from practice at 6 p.m., before Karen has arrived. He feeds his daughter and together they watch basketball on TV. It especially pleases him that she does not cry and that, like him, she stares at the screen, transfixed.