Remember When We Played With Lenny Cooke?

Lenny Cooke was a high school phenom and playground basketball legend. He transferred to NVOT in 2001 and it turned into the most interesting and exciting year of basketball in my life and probably everyone that played for the Knights that year could say the same thing. I found an old video that had a couple of games recorded and figured some of my NVOT alumni would get a kick out of it.

This clip has Lenny's much anticipated entrance for his first game (we rarely sold out one side of the bleachers until that day), the 'First Play', and a few clips of our games against Ramapo and Wayne Hills.

In the Ramapo game you can clearly hear the fans chanting 'SAT!' when Lenny is shooting free throws, our fans counter with 'NBA!' (in hindsight not so much), and in the Wayne Hills game Lenny was being guarded by Chicago Bear tight end Greg Olsen.


(I didn't spend much time editing this video...again just thought some people would think it was cool to kind of 'relive' this for a minute....enjoy)

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Lenny
• Cooke
• NVOT
• John
• Buldo
• Steven
• Prata
• Matt
• Saland
• Alex
• Cho
• Kyle
• Funsch
• James
• Puliatte
• Joe
• Kim
• Tommy

[bballJunkee329]

i will always remember lenny cooke the high school phenom always did good in the camps but didnt have it academically and made some poor life choices. Today NBA would have Cooke's name among the superstars of the league if it weren't for selfish people telling him the wrong advice only looking out for themselves.. i really wished he made it out to anything more then semi-pro bball.. Slam Magazine did a nice article on him some 2-3 years ago. I wish him the best..

[kbvilla]

Every once in a great while I search youtube for any Lenny Cooke clips and this is the only one I've ever found in years. I wish someone would put a documentary about this guy's career because a lot of kids like him can learn from his story. To me, Lenny Cooke is the ultimate hoop dreams lesson. His name should be on the roster of an NBA team today if it weren't for the decisions that were made. Anyway, thanks for the footage and I hope he is doing good for himself wherever he is.

[uMadProductions32]

NVOT!NVOT!

[uncoVTed]

I can't believe for someone with this much hype that there's so little footage.

[SelfMadeJay]

A lot of people forgot about Lenny Cooke.....lebron is one of the best to ever play in the NBA, but at the time Lenny Cooke was the best high school baller.

[ADAMMNNN]

damnnn throwback, he demolished bergenfield lol

[MrQallout]

One of the best high school ballers I have ever seen. Please come back Lenny. NYC stand up

[dubveegirl]

kbvilla--I'm with you. Would love to see the full story on this guy. What a talent!

[kitikotsenglola]

this kid is great tnx for the clip men!! wishing for more video for him its so sad about what i heard from lenny lately that hes a warehouseman already

[thegoat81788]

@kbvilla i agree, kind of reminds me of William Gates from Hoop Dreams the movie but on a different level

[MrQallout]

Anyone who has anymore Lenny cooke footage, please post it. NYC stand up!!