WHERE ARE THEY NOW?: JOE CARRABINO : Money Player : Former Basketball Star at Crespi High Leaps Into a Fast-Paced Life Going Coast to Coast as Investment Banker in New York City

Sometimes when Joe Carrabino stares out the window of his 38th-floor office in the Park Avenue Plaza building in Manhattan, the former Crespi High basketball star wonders if he hasn’t adopted the life style of a professional athlete after all.

Carrabino had his shot at the National Basketball Assn. He was drafted in the sixth round by the Denver Nuggets in 1985, the year he left Harvard University as the school’s all-time leading scorer. But Carrabino’s NBA career lasted all of three days; he was cut in mini-camp.

True, the life of a successful investment banker for a powerful New York City firm lacks the glamour of professional sports and keeps a young man’s name off the sports pages. But there are surprising similarities between Carrabino’s life style and that of an NBA player.

Like his NBA counterparts, he is a young man bringing in a large salary. How else could the 28-year-old Carrabino maintain a mid-town Manhattan apartment?

Carrabino competes in a cutthroat business in which a short slump can lead to failure and the loss of a job. So he, too, fears losing a step, just like the pros.

“We have to stay one step ahead of the client and the competition,” he said from his office at First Boston Corp. in New York. “This is a hyper-competitive, physically demanding business and we sometimes work 24 hours straight. But I’m not whining. I’m well compensated for the time I put in.”

Like professional sports, the field of investment banking rarely breeds longevity, Carrabino said. He claims that after about five years, many in his field either burn out or get fired. And the road trips for investment bankers can be more brutal than a Laker swing through the East Coast. Carrabino often has flown to the West Coast and back in one day and, while working for a client in Texas, made the Dallas-New York run twice a day three times in a week.

An honor student at Harvard, Carrabino can even work a cliche as well as any pro athlete. When asked about his future in the banking business, he voiced a familiar refrain, “I take it one year at a time.”

He even plays as much basketball as the average NBA player. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but Carrabino always stays within a three-point shot of a game. He competes in one of the many lawyer leagues that have proliferated throughout the New York area. He will make his third trip abroad in as many years when he joins a team of former Harvard teammates this summer for some games in Europe during a 10-day tour. Previously, he played in England and Ireland.

That hectic pace has kept Carrabino near his playing weight at Crespi: 230 pounds on his 6-foot-8 frame. Despite his imposing size, few remember him for his play under the basket. It’s his exceptional shooting touch that awed his teammates, who claimed he played at the wrong time.

Carrabino was an All-Southern Section 4-A Division forward for two seasons before he left Crespi in 1980 as the school’s all-time leading scorer.

“He probably would have rivaled all the records in the (Southern Section) if he played with the three-point rule,” said Chris Nikchevich, a former teammate and current Crespi coach.

Carrabino returned to Crespi last winter for the school’s first alumni game, which was organized by Ed Marek, who resigned as Crespi coach this month after one year on the job. Marek assisted then-Coach Paul Muff during Carrabino’s three-year varsity career from 1977-80.

“He was the best shooter Crespi ever had,” Marek said. “At the alumni game, he was the best shooter on the floor.”

Although teammates marveled at his shooting touch, rarely a practice went by without Carrabino serving as the butt of jokes about his leaping ability--or lack of it. He was a legendary non-leaper who never dunked in a high school or college game.

Carrabino is linked to the glory days at Crespi when the Celts battled Notre Dame for recognition as the area’s top basketball program. Notre Dame was led by Nigel Miguel, who later played for UCLA.

“That was the heyday for Crespi basketball,” Carrabino said.

Carrabino still broods over a defeat at Notre Dame in his junior season--the one-referee game in which only one official showed up for an overtime thriller won by Notre Dame, thus preventing Crespi from winning the Del Rey League title. A year later, the teams returned to Notre Dame for the most anticipated game of the season between the Valley’s top-ranked teams.

“There was a pre-sale of the tickets and the game sold out a week in advance,” Carrabino said. “A local TV station showed highlights of the game on the news, which was really unusual for a regular-season game.

“That was just a crazy game. I got my head split open in the first half when I collided with Frank Miller and I argued with Coach Muff when he took me out of the game.”

Carrabino proudly points out that his wound was stitched at halftime and he helped lead Crespi to a win, one of three in a season sweep of the Knights.

Crespi set its sights on the Southern Section 4-A title but faced Verbum Dei, one of Southern California’s top programs in the 1970s, in the second round. Verbum Dei traveled to Pierce College, bringing Kenny Fields, the future UCLA star, as its team leader.

Seated in his plush New York office, Carrabino, the successful young banker who was a Rhodes scholar candidate at Harvard, suddenly shifts gears and in his best locker room growl, proclaims, “We kicked VD’s butts.”

Crespi then lost in the quarterfinals to Long Beach Poly and Carrabino still moans, “We had the talent to go all the way that year.”

Carrabino went a long way himself after leaving Crespi to attend Harvard, an Ivy League school that offers no athletic scholarships.

He started in his third game and earned league rookie-of-the-year honors as a freshman. He sustained a back injury during his sophomore season and sat out of school a full year to retain two years of eligibility. He returned for his junior year, converted 90.5% of his free throws (the nation’s second best mark behind Indiana’s Steve Alford) and was named most valuable player in the Ivy League. He graduated as a first-team Academic All-American and the school scoring leader with 1,880 points.

That summer, he toured Hungary and Egypt on a team with other Harvard players before embarking on his three-day NBA career. He immediately returned to Europe and played professionally in Belgium for one season and then played one year in Australia before ending his playing career.

“I just had to ask myself, ‘Is it time to bite the bullet and hang ‘em up?’ ” he said.

The answer came a lot easier with a Harvard degree in hand and a job awaiting in New York. Park Avenue and a six-figure income is a long way from Crespi’s tiny campus in Encino, but Carrabino keeps close ties with his former high school classmates and credits the school for much of his success.

“At Crespi, they took an interest in me as a student and prepared me academically to go to Harvard,” Carrabino said. “Sports were great and it was a very comfortable environment to be yourself. The Crespi days have been a springboard to everything else.”