Sam Schoenfeld

Early life and education

Sam Schoenfeld was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, New York. His parents Benjamin and Sarah were Austrian Jews. Originally named "Schuster", they changed their name to "Schoenfeld" when they immigrated to America. Benjamin was a kosher butcher. He died at age 37 in April 1913. Sam was the youngest of three children. He had an older sister, Jean ("Jenny"), and an older brother, Herman. Later, when Sarah remarried, she had another son, Jacob ("Jack").

Schoenfeld showed early aptitude for sports and especially loved basketball, even from a very early age. He was a star player at Commercial High School, later known as Alexander Hamilton High School; it no longer exists.

In college, known as "Sammy", he played forward on the varsity basketball team alongside Lou Bender and George Gregory at Columbia University in Manhattan. Although mediocre his sophomore and junior year, by Schoenfeld's senior year with the addition of Lou Bender, the team won the Ivy League championship in 1930. He and Bender were named first team All-Ivy League. He graduated in 1931.

Player

Schoenfeld played professionally in the American Basketball League (the top professional league in the East) in the 1930s.

Coach

Schoenfeld was a basketball coach at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn. He coached the team to a first-place tie in the 1941–42 season and a divisional crown in 1942–43.

Referee

In the 1930s and 1940s, Schoenfeld was among the top college referees in the nation. From 1946 to 1951, Schoenfeld was a referee for the National Basketball Association.

Schoenfeld became the founder and first president (1948–50) of the Collegiate Basketball Officials Association.

Other pursuits

In 1936 Sam began developing a prototype for the first full-size basketball stop-clock. The clock was tested at Thomas Jefferson High School and The Brooklyn Jewish Center.

Schoenfeld was the co-founder and part owner of the sleepaway camp Camp Deerhead in Hancock, New York which provided athletic activities to children.

He was also a partner in the first Howard Johnson's restaurant in Brooklyn.

Honors and awards

Known for his character, "impeccable honesty", and integrity, Schoenfeld was honored by the CBOA when it designated an annual award in his name, beginning the year of his death in 1956. "The Schoenfeld Sportsmanship Award is the highest honor that CBOA annually bestows on any collegiate institution." The award has been henceforth given annually to the coach and college which best exemplify "the highest degree of sportsmanship, character, and ethics among its players, coaches, and spectators in the conduct of its intercollegiate basketball games."

On September 24, 2009, Schoenfeld was posthumously inducted into the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame in recognition of his contributions to the game of basketball.

Personal life and final years

Sam and his wife had three sons: Dr. Robert ("Bob"), Ed, and Peter. After a battle with pancreatic cancer, Schoenfeld died March 3, 1956 at the home of his brother Herman in Freeport, Long Island, New York.