Rutgers All America forward Phil Sellers,right, gets a hug from teammate Jeff Kleinbaum after they beat Virginia Military Institute 91-75 in the NCAA East Regional championship basketball game in Greensboro, N.C., March 20, 1976. AP Photo/Harold Valentine
He is the greatest basketball player to have worn a Rutgers University uniform.
And if you didn’t mention Phil Sellers, well, you’d be wrong. Dead wrong.
Oh sure, there are Bob Lloyd and James Bailey and even Ron Harper Jr. and Eddie Jordan.
But remember, Sellers was the best player on the 1976 Final Four team.
He’s 69 years old now, and after a series of medical setbacks, he needs help.
The Thomas Jefferson High School grad remains in a rehabilitation center, and his family wonders how they’ll pay the medical bills.
According to NJ.com, he is bedridden, being fed intravenously and has a tracheotomy to help his breathing.
Hard to believe — especially for former coach Jeff Schrier.
“Phil was on the first high school team I ever coached,” Schrier told the Brooklyn Eagle. “I was an assistant coach at Jefferson when he was a sophomore. He always was an intense competitor, and he had to be. Canarsie had Lloyd Free, Madison had Ron Haigler, Boys had Ernie Douse and Pete Davis.”
You get the drift. It was a golden age for Brooklyn basketball, and Phil was at the pinnacle of it from his sophomore year.
Fast forward to today.
He never had that lucrative NBA career.
Phil Sellers arrived at Rutgers in 1972. It was Dick Vitale who was a Rutgers assistant coach, luring Sellers out of his Brownsville housing complex.
He averaged 19.5 points-a-game his first season.
“He was the best player in New York City,” Schrier said, “As a sophomore, he was immature. He had great talent, but also had a lack of respect for his elders. He explained his temper by saying that he was frustrated easily because he was so talented; his desire to learn and perform better and relate with his teammates was a cause of the…
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