The basketball talent that came out of Pittsburgh had no comparable staying power.
When the steel mills closed, the city's population shrank and by the mid-1980s the flow of prospective students slowed to a minimum. There were fewer places for city kids to play, but also fewer places for suburban players to test themselves – as there had been since Cumberland Posey's days.
And then there's the lure of the Steelers.
In Ohio, said Dambrot, who was LeBron James' first high school coach, the best athletes will play basketball first and football second. In Western Pennsylvania, football comes first and often second. He has three players on his team from the Pittsburgh area, none of whom are on scholarship. The University of Pittsburgh has two locals, also walk-ons, on its roster.
Late Tuesday afternoon, 17-year-old Jaydan Brown had arrived at the Ammon Community Recreation Center, home of the Hill District's 56-year-old Ozanam basketball program. Upstairs, college students, some in ties and jackets, taught math to elementary school children and helped them make model helicopters. Meals were served and balls were thrown on the basketball court.
Darelle Porter now directs the program.
Porter is a towering figure with an amiable presence and greets everyone by name. He was recruited to Pitt by Calipari, then a young assistant, and was preparing to check into a game when he missed one of college basketball's most enduring highlights – Jerome Lane's backboard-shaking dunk in 1988.
Porter, who later coached at Duquesne, tells the youngsters aspirational and cautionary tales, often pointing to the banners hanging above the field. These include those of local legends Maurice Lucas, Sam Clancy, DeJuan Blair, Kenny Durrett and Clay, as well as his own.
There's still room for a few more, he tells them.
“Basketball is overlooked here,” said Brown, a junior at Central Catholic High, who believes that won’t stop him from adding another line to the city’s basketball history.
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