Ray Pagan, 65, supercoach of Dapolito Center OBITUARY BY JUDITH STILES
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f the Supergirls have their way with the New York City Parks Department, the gym at Tony Dapolito Recreation Center will be renamed after their beloved mentor and coach, Ray Pagan, who died this past Sept. 26 after a valiant struggle with complications related to Parkinson’s disease. He was recently retired and a month shy of 65th birthday. Emily Mojica, a former Supergirls basketball star of the 1980s, joined with her former teammates to create iplayedforray.com, a heartfelt memorial Web site with more than 500 beautiful photographs that tell the story of how Pagan touched the lives of so many people. For more than 39 years, from 1976 to 2015, he worked at the Tony Dapolito Rec Center, at Clarkson St. and Seventh Ave. South, as youth director of the Greenwich Village Basketball League. “There is no coach in the universe who gave so much of his time and love to the game and his players. The team was his family,” recalled Mojica, an allstar point guard who received a full basketball scholarship to Iona College, with help and guidance from Ray. In the early ’80s, as a young teen, Mojica pleaded with Ray to start a basketball and softball team for girls. “At first he said, no, because he had three jobs at the time,” she said. “But then he said, ‘Find me the players and I’ll coach you.’” At the time Pagan, was also working midnight to 6 a.m. at UPS. In the mornings, he would sleep a little before he went to work part-time at a dry cleaner,
Ray Pagan.
and then, from 2:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., he would work at the Carmine Recreation Center, now known as Tony Dapolito Recreation Center. At the rec center, he worked for the Parks Department, but everyone knew he really worked for the kids. The players were his children. “Ray knew just how to communicate with all different kinds of players from different backgrounds,” recalled Ernesto Bustamente, who coached and refereed alongside Ray at Dapolito for more than 10 years. “He was a kind of poet, in that he knew how to deliver the right message in very few words. He was a big brother to me.” Unlike many youth sports directors, Pagan wasn’t stingy about sharing his players nor did he hoard his top-notch
referees. In 1994, when Harry Malakoff, founder of the Greenwich Village Girls Basketball League, was building teams and recruiting players, Pagan sent him girls who were playing co-ed, and not getting enough basketball passes from the boys. He also connected Malakoff with the best referees in town. “I never heard Ray yell at the kids,” remembered Ralph Washington, a coworker at the front desk of Dapolito. “If there was a problem, he would take the kid aside and talk. He had a big heart.” Pagan was a neighborhood legend, a father figure, a mentor, “a life-changer,” a community leader and a friend to hundreds of boys and girls who played sports in Lower Manhattan. When his friend Rich Battaglino was asked how
many people showed up for the memorial service for Ray this past Oct. 14 at Dapolito, he answered, “It was a full house! As many people as you could hold, and then some!” At the service, when friends and former players shared memories with each other, there was a common thread about how Ray was such a “fair” coach. He gave all levels of players decent playing time, and there were not a lot of benchwarmers. Yet, at the same time Pagan was known for a fierce competitive streak, coupled with his uncanny ability to win games. One way he solved the eternal coach’s conundrum of equal playing time versus winning, was to save his strongest players until the end, and them put them in the game all at once. It was a coaching secret that he was not reluctant to share. Roberta Cunningham a.k.a. Poochye, the registrar who worked alongside Pagan for decades, remembered him fondly as someone who “was always willing to do a favor for anyone without expecting something in return.” Shaking her head, she lamented, “Nobody will be able to fill the shoes of Ray.” However if the iplayedforray.com Web site is any indication, Pagan’s wisdom about life and his sharp skills as a coach will surely be passed along to more youngsters for years to come. As Ann Topper, a Supergirl, wrote in remembrance of Pagan, “Because of you Ray, we will never skip steps. We will reach out to others and we will do everything with love and passion, just the way you taught us. You were a man that went above and beyond. You brought out nothing but the best in people, and you never asked for anything in return. You were one of a kind.”
Letters to The Editor LETTERS continued from p. 10
Folded on Franken To The Editor: “#MeToo is going too far for some veteran feminists” (news article, Feb. 8): Good article. I agree that Al Franken was an unfortunate casualty; the Dems caved on that one. As far as I know, the comment about Al Goldstein is accurate. He was obnoxious but I never heard of him being labeled as abusive. Jared Rutter
TheVillager.com
Plan is ‘Harley’ fair To The Editor: Re “Why Downtown should back congestion pricing” (talking point, by Charles Komanoff, Feb. 8): We all want to reduce congestion in Manhattan. One of the primary tools that London’s planners implemented in their successful congestion-pricing plan was to incentivize motorcycles and scooters with free passage into their congestion zone. They recognize what everyone already understands in most European cities, which is that two-wheeled vehicles are fuel-efficient, congestion-reducing transportation, and they actively encourage a mode shift from car driving to motorcycle riding.
Why wouldn’t our small, lightweight vehicles be exempt from the proposed toll here in New York City, just as they are in London? Small scooters can weigh as little as 160 pounds and achieve as much as 132 miles per gallon. Average fuel consumption for two-wheeled vehicles is less than half that of the average car, and six scooters or motorcycles can park in the space occupied by one SUV. Yet, the FixNYC plan lumps our vehicles in with passenger cars and SUV’s. All would be tolled the same $11.52 per trip. Not only are two-wheeled vehicles not mentioned in the FixNYC plan, we’re also completely absent from the otherwise comprehensive Balanced Transportation Analyzer. Why would such a useful tool, which measures every other form of transportation, including bicycles and
pedestrians, fail to include two-wheeled vehicles? Fuel-efficient, congestion-reducing two-wheeled vehicles are part of the solution, and we therefore should be exempt from the congestion-pricing toll. Cheryl Stewart E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager. com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 1 MetroTech North, 10th floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. Anonymous letters will not be published. Februar y 22, 2018
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