A basketball team is often likened to a well-oiled machine, like an automobile perhaps.
The team – like the car – has many moving parts that all work together to reach the optimal level. But in both cases, a driver – or a coach in the team’s case – is vital to the successful operation.
Since 1986, Astoria native and current Hollis Hills resident Anthony Alfaro has worked at the family-owned Alfaro Motors 241st Street, Inc., so he knows plenty about how a car works.
But for the past 18 years, Alfaro has been a successful basketball coach as well, and he’s eager for his newest challenge: head women’s basketball coach at LaGuardia Community College, Long Island City.
The LaGuardia Red Hawks will play their inaugural season as the newest member of the City University of New York Athletic Conference. Alfaro was named head women’s coach this past April.
Though LaGuardia is a public institution, Alfaro will not be afraid to instill Catholic values in his players. He grew up playing Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) baseball and basketball in the elementary school and parish at St. Joseph, Astoria, before attending Mater Christi H.S., Astoria – currently St. John’s Prep.
From there, Alfaro earned a bachelor of science degree in accounting from St. John’s University, Jamaica, in 1986. He met his wife Diana at St. John’s, and the couple has three children: Anthony, Christina and Christopher.
Alfaro’s introduction to coaching came in 1996 when his son Anthony was five. Alfaro enrolled his son in the family’s new parish, American Martyrs, Bayside, CYO baseball program and served as the coach.
Through the years at American Martyrs, Alfaro coached baseball, softball, boys’ and girls’ basketball and boys’ and girls’ soccer while serving as parish athletic representative for baseball and girls’ basketball as well. His teams won numerous CYO titles, but it was more so the experience with teaching his players that allowed him to rise through the coaching ranks.
“I always knew that the Catholic school upbringing, the discipline and the structure, was what formed me into being consistent and responsible,” Alfaro said. “When I began to coach, my high school coaches and my grammar school coaches … things that stuck with me that they said … had a lot of meaning to it.”
Before taking the LaGuardia job, Alfaro was an assistant junior varsity softball coach at The Mary Louis Academy, Jamaica Estates; head junior varsity girls’ basketball coach at Archbishop Molloy H.S., Briarwood; head women’s basketball coach at Globe Institute of Technology, Manhattan; associate head women’s basketball coach at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology, Flushing; and head girls’ basketball coach at Avenues: The World School, Manhattan.
Avenue for CHSAA Girls
Alfaro said that one of his many goals with the Red Hawks’ new program is to provide a viable avenue for local Catholic high school basketball players to continue their playing careers. Unfortunately, many young women stop playing the game they love after high school if they do not receive a scholarship offer to a Division I or Division II college team.
Alfaro believes that he can play a role in helping talented players move up to the next level after playing on his team. LaGuardia is a two-year junior college program, so the players would still have two years of NCAA eligibility at a larger institution.
He already has plans to reach out to the local CYO and CHSAA teams to have his players run basketball clinics. In that way, local student-athletes can be made aware early of what LaGuardia has to offer.
As for this season, assembling a 15-player roster for a brand new program seemed like a daunting task, but Alfaro relied heavily on the support of the school’s administration and his assistant coach, Tara Scheff-Jordan. Scheff-Jordan was Alfaro’s assistant at Globe, and the two have developed a great chemistry.
“She (Scheff-Jordan) was the driving force behind making this recruiting process so successful,” Alfaro said. “She becomes a mentor to these young ladies because she played college ball and she went to junior college. She did what these girls want to do.”
With Scheff-Jordan serving as the mentor, Alfaro will look to be a father figure to the young women. He has already left an impact on countless CYO and CHSAA athletes, and now he hopes to enrich the lives of college-age players.
“The real sign of that is when you see your players 10 years later, and they still call you ‘Coach,’” Alfaro said. “You know that they accepted what you taught them, and it’s a great feeling to know that they appreciated the 100 percent effort you put in on a day-to-day basis.”
With official team practices starting Oct. 1 and the 30-game season set to begin in early November, Alfaro is pleased with the progress of his team. He intends to feature an up-tempo style of offense so that all 15 players contribute, which will in turn help them receive interest from four-year institutions.
He said his days have been very exciting thus far and that this program could be the start of something good for local basketball players in the neighborhood.
“I’m very fortunate for this opportunity,” he said. “I really do think that this was a plan from God. He makes you stumble, but then He begins to show you the light. But you’re the one that has to go get to the light. He doesn’t open the door and push you through. You have to go through. That’s how I believe.”
Even with his new responsibility as head coach at LaGuardia, Alfaro will remain the CEO and directing manager of Alfaro Motors.
Based on his experience in both his professional and coaching career, Alfaro has the necessary “tools” to turn LaGuardia’s new basketball program into a well-oiled machine.