In the middle of his 40th year as the men’s basketball coach at Yeshiva University, Jonathan Halpert, normally quick with a wisecrack, could not joke his way past the truth: his team was playing poorly.

David Kufeld, who was drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers in 1980, and his coach, Jonathan Halpert.

 Wearing a yarmulke and dressed in navy warm-up pants he has had for 10 years and a pullover that was twice as old, Halpert sat in front of a large dry-erase board. Blue smears were all that remained of a failed game plan for Yeshiva’s 75-68 loss in December to St. Joseph’s College of Patchogue, N.Y. The Maccabees would have been victorious, Halpert said, had they not missed 10 layups. 

“I’ve done a great job this season,” he said. “I’ve done everything I can possibly do. If your team is missing layups, there’s nothing more you can do.”

The challenges of coaching at a university like Yeshiva are nothing new to the 67-year-old Halpert, currently the longest-serving basketball coach in New York City. Yeshiva students attend Judaic and secular courses for up to 12 hours a day, the team practices just four times a week because of the Sabbath, and the Maccabees’ opponents frequently possess more talent and superior training.

With a record of 397-515, Halpert has spent half his career grinding through losing seasons like this 4-20 campaign — which ends Saturday against Mount St. Vincent — mostly on a salary of less than $25,000 a year. He made his livelihood operating homes on Long Island for mentally retarded adults before retiring in 2005. Though he does not plan on retiring after this season, he said, “It has to come to an end.” 

“Look, it’s harder,” he said. “It’s harder to keep this drive and this passion. There have been times when I’ve sat down to do the practice and gone. ...” He paused to sigh in frustration.

He continued: “But I still do it. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. I love to come to practice because at practice I can teach.”

Halpert takes pride in having built a respectable Division III program. He tells his players that learning is what matters most, whether it comes from classes or his motion offense.

“It’s the process of what you’re doing — what have you gone through to get where you are — not the end result,” he said. 

Halpert’s life has been devoted to Yeshiva. His father, a Jewish orphan from Palestine, began working at the university in 1928, as a typist shortly after arriving in New York when he was 16. 

Halpert’s basketball education came at Yeshiva, where he played for Bernard Sarachek, who was known as Red and coached Yeshiva from 1940 to 1969. After college, Halpert became a coach at Yeshiva high school before taking over at the university in 1972. Before leaving his house for his first game, Halpert, then 27, told his wife that the Maccabees were going to win and he was going to be the reason. 

“So, I came home and we lost by 22 points,” he said. It was an inauspicious beginning for Halpert, a harbinger of the challenges he would face for the next four decades. Yeshiva students begin Judaic studies at 8 a.m. before switching to secular classes that can last until 8 p.m., leaving little time for basketball practice. Students also must make time for morning prayers, known as davening, and rabbinical training.

“He’s projected Yeshiva’s mission of living harmoniously in two cultures, the Jewish world and the secular world, better than anyone else on campus,” said Dr. Jeffrey S. Gurock, a Yeshiva history professor and a former Halpert assistant. “He’s taught several generations of young basketball players how to deal with the challenges of life. There’s no greater gift a parent or a teacher or a coach can give.”

Yeshiva did not have a winning season between 1960 and 1985. In that stretch it did not have its own basketball facility and was forced to play at courts around the city.

read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/sports/ncaabasketball/for-yeshiva-basketball-coach-its-all-about-the-journey.html