He’s been out of Lincoln for eight years and his name still comes up constantly, particularly with his cousin, Sebastian Telfair, starring for the Railsplitters.
While many of the memories involve superb games played all over Brooklyn – including ones close to his Coney Island home at Lincoln and neighborhood rival Grady – the most recalled happened at Marbury’s new home with the Knicks, Madison Square Garden.
“The game that stands out the most was when we won at the Garden,” said Bobby Hartstein, who coached Marbury for four years and has known the new Knick point guard practically since birth. “That game was the culmination of everything.”
Marbury had helped lead Lincoln to the PSAL title game at the Garden in his sophomore and junior seasons. A fractured hip in a semifinal win over Grady in 1993 slowed him in a loss to Walton. A year later, MLK was simply a better team, according to Hartstein.
That left Marbury as a senior and one of the most exciting players the city had ever seen not to win it all, as Lincoln trailed Robeson in the second half of the 1995 final.
“People came up to me after the game and told me they thought it was over,” Hartstein said. “But with Stephon, it never was.”
Marbury brought the Splitters back and hit a pair of free throws in the game’s final minute to help seal the win.
“I’d never seen him so happy,” said Hartstein, who coached Marbury for more seasons than anyone else. “When his brother Norman lost with me in the semifinals and Stephon cried like a baby, winning at the Garden was so important to him.”
After the win over Robeson, Hartstein took the team to Skinflint’s in Bay Ridge to celebrate – the same place Marbury made his announcement that he was going to Georgia Tech.
“Everyone in Coney Island was there,” Hartstein said. “At least it seemed that way.”
Fitting, since it seemed almost everyone from there had watched him play and dominate.
“We were up by six with about 30 seconds left once and [Marbury] hit some shots and made some passes that won the game for them even with us throwing two guys at him,” said former Grady head coach Jack Ringel. “After the game, someone came out of the stands and asked me, ‘Couldn’t you have done anything to stop him?’ There was no way.”
