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By BRUCE LOWITT
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 22, 2001
Growing up on Long Island, Brad and Seth Greenberg were fierce competitors in basketball. "We probably played about a zillion one-on-one games on the side of our house," Brad said. "We helped train each other 'cause we could always get a game going."
They're on the same side now. Thursday, Brad was named director of basketball operations at South Florida, handling the administrative duties for the men's team coached by Seth. Brad Greenberg will be responsible for, among other things, team schedules, travel and scouting. For the past four seasons he was the analyst on telecasts of USF games.
His last college basketball experience was as an assistant coach at American, his alma mater, from 1977-78, and St. Joseph's (1978-84). Since then he has been with several NBA teams -- as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers and New York Knicks, scout with the Orlando Magic, scout and vice president of player personnel with the Portland Trail Blazers, and general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers when they drafted Allen Iverson in 1996.
For Brad, 47, the lure of coming to USF was threefold: working with Seth, younger by two years (a third brother, Dean, 49, is in the import-export business in Australia), raising children in a campus atmosphere, and working with college players. "You have a greater chance to positively influence them than the ones who have signed multimillion-dollar contracts," Brad Greenberg said.
"When two brothers work in the basketball world, you don't have many chances to be in the same place," he said. "I have two kids (9 and 15), and Seth has three (from 6 to 13), and won't it be nice for cousins to actually get to know each other? They've seen each other maybe half a dozen times in their lives."
The college campus, he said, provides a vibrant environment for his children. "There's a lot of glitz and glamor for the son of a general manager hanging out in an NBA locker room, but it's healthier for them to be around college-age kids."