“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the places you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.”

These words were coined by 18th-century theologian John Wesley, and they’ve been central to the life mission of Brooklyn native Barry “Slice” Rohrssen, a longtime basketball coach dedicated to service for others.

Rohrssen, 64, was born at Methodist Hospital. His mother, Dorothy, instilled in him the values of Catholicism from an early age and enrolled him at St. Thomas Aquinas in Park Slope. “Still to this day, at 91 years young, my mother continues to be one of my strongest examples and influences,” Rohrssen said.

In addition to graduating from neighboring Holy Family Elementary, it was where Rohrssen’s Catholic Youth Organization basketball journey began. He then went to Xaverian H.S., Bay Ridge, to continue his foundation in Catholic education. “One of the most important things for young teens is direction and guidance, and that’s where Xaverian excels,” he said. “The Xaverian brothers, along with the faculty and staff, were extraordinarily dedicated to its students.”

Rohrssen ran cross-country in the fall as a freshman but was among the final two players cut from the freshman basketball team, along with eventual actor Scott Baio — known best for his roles in “Happy Days” and “Charles in Charge.” In a strong showing of perseverance, Rohrssen made the varsity team as a senior after failing to make it as a junior, one year after playing on the junior varsity team as a sophomore.

Rohrssen graduated from Xaverian in 1978 and attended St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, where he was a guard on the Division I basketball team, continuing in the tradition of Catholic education. As he pondered a career path, Rohrssen remembered witnessing coaching titans in the CHSAA, one of the country’s most competitive basketball leagues. “The CHSAA had a profound impact on my career,” Rohrssen said. “Watching those coaches is what instilled a love of coaching in me. You just walked into a gym and saw coaches who were so dedicated and knowledgeable.”

He earned the nickname “Slice” at the prestigious Five-Star basketball camp, co-founded by Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer Howard Garfinkel. Rohrssen was a camp counselor, and Garfinkel noticed his ability to “slice” to the basket, helping to create emphatic dunks during counselor games. It was at this camp where Rohrssen met Ron Ganulin, later the head coach at St. Francis College. In 1993, Rohrssen was hired for his first assistant coaching job at St. Francis, thanks to his relationship with Ganulin.

This marked the beginning of a nearly 25-year career as a coach and administrator at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, the University of Pittsburgh, Manhattan College (as head coach), the Portland Trail Blazers’ developmental league team, back to Pittsburgh, the University of Kentucky under John Calipari (another Five-Star camp connection), and most recently, St. John’s University in Jamaica.

“It’s been an amazing run,” said Rohrssen, who was part of the Kentucky team that won an NCAA-record 38 games in 2014-2015 en route to a berth in the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four. For his lifetime body of work, he’s been inducted into Xaverian’s Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame and the Basketball Old-Timers of America Hall of Fame.

Today, Rohrssen is a basketball broadcaster on SNY and ESPN+ for Columbia University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology men’s teams. His broadcasting career began with St. Francis College when then-head coach Glenn Braica — a Bishop Ford H.S., Park Slope graduate — got him involved. Broadcasting allows him to stay connected to the game he loves.

From visiting U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to co-founding the Tom Konchalski Foundation in memory of the late, great local basketball scout, Rohrssen remains dedicated to service. He is grateful for the support of his wife, Kerry, originally from St. Andrew Avellino Parish in Flushing, and their son, Rowan.

“That’s one of the reasons why I coach — to serve others and help young men who were once in my shoes and served by great coaches who made themselves available,” said the Riverdale resident and current parishioner at St. Gabriel’s in the Bronx. “That really hit home to me — trying to serve the young men that you coach and make yourself available to them.”

As Rohrssen has said, there’s more to coaching basketball than Xs and Os. He still has daily conversations with many of his former players, some of whom are now college and youth coaches themselves, much to his delight.

With his Catholic faith and education at the forefront, Rohrssen has lived out John Wesley’s words of service and more. That’s the true mark of greatness for a coach.