BEFORE we get into it, I should make a few preliminary points aimed at whatever athletic directors and presidents should happen to stumble across this column:

1. I called Bobby Gonzalez for this. He did not call me.

2. I wanted to talk to Gonzalez about Gonzalez. He wanted to talk about his basketball team, the Manhattan College Jaspers; and his players, who before running into a Marist buzzsaw Wednesday night in Poughkeepsie had strung together 10 consecutive wins; and the program, which has now had an almost uninterrupted string of success for two decades, something that predated his arrival and, Gonzalez insists, will continue long after he departs.

3. By saying “long after he departs,” Gonzalez is in no way saying he is unhappy at Manhattan, implying that he is itching to leave, pining for other ports of call or in any way auditioning for his next job. He loves the job he has now. He loves coaching Manhattan. He said so no fewer than 15 times during a 45-minute telephone call earlier this week. And let me reiterate: I called him.

“I’m not saying I’m not ambitious,” Bobby Gonzalez said. “But everywhere else in America, isn’t ambition supposed to be a good thing?

Bobby Gonzalez’ story really is a wonderful tale of persistence and stubbornness, one that proves that toil and talent really can yield splendid results. This is a coaching career that began in his native Binghamton, both at SUNY-Binghamton and at Broome Community College. He made it to New York the first time as an assistant coach in high schools, at Tolentine, then Rice. Pete Gillen saw something in the kid – ambition, maybe? – and hired him at Providence, then brought him to Virginia.

Gonzalez didn’t just show up at Manhattan. He took the long way to Riverdale. He took the scenic route.

“I enjoyed every bit of it,” Gonzalez said. “Basketball was always it for me. I knew nothing was going to be handed to me, and it wasn’t. Hey, I’m not the only guy who’s ever worked hard, I know that. But I knew that was going to be the only way I got where I wanted to go. And I wanted to get there bad.”

Funny thing, though. At some point, working hard, wearing ambition on your sleeve, chasing after the brass ring, stops being an endearing quality in some precincts. In those eyes, you go from being a grinder to a player, from a guy working all hours to a guy working all the angles. Fairly or not.

Hey, Gonzalez will cop to bringing much of that on himself. His first few years at Manhattan, he worked the sidelines so furiously, it looked as if he might spontaneously combust at any moment.

When the Jaspers made the NCAA Tournament a few years ago, he made his players scarce and insisted on handling most of the interviews, and it made him come off as a glory hound, even if that wasn’t his intention. And when bigger jobs came open – most notably St. John’s, and Miami, and others – he refused to lie and say he wasn’t interested.

“I made some mistakes,” he says. “I made some unbelievable mistakes. I was younger then. I wasn’t as mature as I think I am now. Maybe I didn’t know how to handle certain things. Look, all the success we had here, it helped me to a huge extent. And it also hurt me a little. I know some people came off with a bad impression of me.”

None of that should matter, of course, if a guy knows how to build a basketball program. It is telling, though, that after a Luis Flores-led Jaspers team stunned Florida in the NCAA Tournament two years ago, when they came within an eyelash of beating Wake Forest two days later – thisclose to the Sweet 16 – Gonzalez came home and barely got a sniff from St. John’s, the school that still fancies itself as New York’s Windsor Family. Norm Roberts has done a fine job there. St. John’s alums are allowed to wonder what kind of job Bobby Gonzalez might have done, given the chance.

Now there is the likelihood of a job opening at Seton Hall next year, and there are an awful lot of Seton Hall people out there who think Bobby Gonzalez would be a splendid fit, and there is little doubt he would be. If Gonzalez is one of them, he isn’t saying, and won’t say. He signed a six-year extension at Manhattan. He’s got a serious girlfriend, and a serious run at success where he already is.

“People are going to believe what they want to believe about me,” Gonzalez said. “I can’t change that. But I know how good I have it here.”

All around him are reminders. Steve Lappas and Fran Fraschilla both parlayed Manhattan into big-time jobs, and now both are out of coaching. Gillen, his coaching rabbi, is out, too. Bigger doesn’t always mean better. The coaching landscape is littered with guys who used mid-major jobs as quick launching pads to something else. Few stay around long enough to build a program, and then build it back again. For all the good they did at Manhattan, neither Lappas nor Fraschilla did that.

Gonzalez has. If St. John’s is still the gold standard around here, Manhattan is the team people have buzzed about the past few years. If others think Gonzalez committed some kind of venial sin with all that ambition, Gonzalez has done something else with it: he’s built something strong, something real, in his own little corner of New York City. Something that will last long after he’s gone, whether that’s next year or in 2025.

(Mike Vaccaro’s e-mail address is michael.vaccaro@nypost.com. His Yankees-Red Sox book, “Emperors and Idiots,” is available at bookstores everywhere).

VAC’SWHACKS

After all those times when he saw someone come into his house and steal a Super Bowl away, it sure would be nice to see Bill Cowher return the favor in Denver today.

If anyone truly believed working in this city really isn’t different than anywhere else in the country, all you had to do was listen to the way Colts GM Bill Polian was reduced to a simpering, quivering mess by the professional and overwhelmingly fair questions put to him on the radio the other day by Chris Russo and Mike Francesa. Polian, born in The Bronx, for crying out loud, came off as one of the great goobers of all time. And suddenly Terry Bradway didn’t look quite so overwhelmed.

Bob Sutton, the new Jets’ defensive coordinator, was the last guy to figure out how to win regularly at West Point, which is only one of a few thousand reasons to cheer that he finally got a pro gig equal to his talent.

If Michelle Kwan can get a bye right into the Olympics without qualfying for them, shouldn’t someone see if the Giants can make the Super Bowl the same way?