High school basketball: Nearly 70 years after his father saved Martin Luther King Jr.'s life, Ron Naclerio approaches New York wins record on holiday

"It would be a special day," Naclerio said. "I've been thinking this week that we could get close, depending on if we win the games we should win. We've had some real nailbiters the past couple of weeks, so you never know. Martin Luther King Day is a special day in our family, that day and Sept. 20."

Sept. 20 is the day that the life of the Naclerio family, and the King family, changed forever. If not for the skill of Naclerio's father, there would not have been a march on Selma or "I Have a Dream" speech or even a Martin Luther King Day. "September 20, 1958, my father was heading down to the Waldorf-Astoria for a wedding when he got a phone call," Naclerio said. "He was told to report to the Harlem Hospital for an emergency. When he got there, it was Dr. King with a knife in his chest."

Just three years removed from Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycotts (which King led), King was at Blumstein's Department Store in Harlem, signing his book "Stride Toward Freedom," which was his account of the boycotts. There, Izola Curry stabbed King with a letter opener.

"The knife was resting on the aorta," Naclerio said. "If he would have coughed or sneezed, it would have punctured the aorta. Sort of like a pin on a balloon. My dad couldn't risk removing the knife, so he cut out two ribs and was able to move the aorta out of the way and save his life."

King expressed gratitude for Dr. Naclerio's life-saving efforts and the relationship turned into a lasting friendship.

"After the surgery, my dad got a phone call from Coretta (Scott King) a couple of weeks later," Naclerio said. "She said, 'The movement has to continue and Martin doesn't trust any other doctors but you. He'd like you to come with us when we travel.' So my dad traveled as Dr. King's doctor on his trips around the country."

Ron Naclerio, who was just over a year old at the time of the surgery, looks back fondly on his interactions with the civil rights leader.

"We got a call at the house one time when I was young and I answered the phone the way I was taught by my parents, 'Dr. Naclerio and Mrs. Naclerio's residence." My parents ask who it was, and I said, 'It's someone who says they are a king," Naclerio said with a chuckle.

"When I met Martin later, he said to me, 'I am Martin, but I am no King.'"

"Without Martin Luther King Jr., there would be no civil rights movement," Ron Naclerio told the New York Post in 2018. "My father allowed him those 10 extra years to continue the movement."

Fast forward to 2026 and Martin Luther King Day looms large in Naclerio's march toward the top of the all-time wins list in New York. Hired in 1981, Naclerio has spent his entire 45-year career at Cardozo, a public school in Queens that plays in the Public Schools Athletic League.

During that time, he has coached a number of players who have gone on to college and also the NBA, including former Sacramento Kings first-round draft pick Duane Causwell along with AND1 legend and former Houston Rocket Rafer 'Skip to my Lou' Alston.

"You know how he got that nickname, don't you," Naclerio asked. "He used to be called "Shorty." Then we he got a little older he was called "Energizer." But one game at the Rucker (Park), he was coming downcourt and a player fell down in front of him so Rafer dribbled the ball and sort of skipped around him. The announcer began singing 'Skip, skip, skip to my Lou' and that was that."

Naclerio began the current season with 961 wins – just 11 short of tying Curran. He has the unique distinction of both coaching and playing against Curran.

"Jack was the baseball coach at Molloy and I was a pretty good baseball player in high school at Cardozo and in college at St. John's" said Naclerio, who spent time in the Chicago White Sox organization before injuring his ankle. "So I actually got to play against him in baseball."

"When I just started coaching basketball, we got a game together because Cardozo had the classiest public school and Jack had the classiest private school. So we set up a game," Naclerio said. "He brought (former NBA player) Kenny Smith and beat us something like 99-57."

Like Curran, Naclerio's career has reached legendary status and he often likens it to that of former TV basketball coach Ken Reeves, a white man who coached at fictional New York inner-city Carver High on the show "White Shadow."

"White Shadow" was often ahead-of-its time in dealing with the choices players and kids had to make growing up in the inner city. The show dealt with racism, drugs, violence, wrongful incarceration and even death. Choices that Naclerio has also dealt with during his tenure at Cardozo.

"I was a former professional athlete and I was coaching inner-city kids," Naclerio said. "That show was popular when I began coaching and I could identify with it."

Naclerio began his coaching career at Cardozo with a 1-21 record. A year later his team was 21-4 and he has had a successful run with the Judges ever since. He still reflects back on that first season, however.

"I still think about that 1-21 season," Naclerio said. "Whenever we lose a close game or have a run of losses, like we did earlier this month, I think back on that season. I never want to get to that point again."

As a result, Naclerio still has a passion for the game 45 years later.

"I definitely do. We had two close losses last week and I'm still rethinking what I could have done differently," he said. "Losing is way more miserable now than winning is fun."

The fun will come, however, when Cardozo gets win No. 973 and moves one game ahead of Curran. Then Naclerio will have two reasons to celebrate Martin Luther King Day.

And when that final buzzer sounds on win No. 973, the moment will stand as more than a coaching milestone. It will link a lifetime spent shaping young men in a Queens gym to a September day in 1958 when another kind of pressure-filled decision helped change the course of American history. 

For Naclerio, passing Jack Curran on or near Martin Luther King Jr. Day would not just cap 45 years of basketball excellence, but quietly echo a family legacy rooted in service, courage and the belief that what you do in one moment can ripple far beyond it.