Herb Turetzky, Nets’ Official Scorer for 54 Years, Dies at 76

After one season in Teaneck, Mr. Turetzky adopted the Nets to Lengthy Island, the place they performed in three arenas, together with the Nassau Coliseum; then to a few houses again in New Jersey, together with the Prudential Middle in Newark; and eventually to Barclays Middle in Brooklyn.

Between 1984 and 2018, he scored 1,465 consecutive video games.

“After I did my 900th straight recreation, they coated it on NBA TV,” he instructed the New Jersey newspaper The Document in 2012. “Charles Barkley was on, and once they made that remark to Barkley, all he stated was: ‘9 hundred straight nets video games? Boy, that man’s seen a variety of unhealthy basketball.’”

“I’ve seen some unhealthy video games,” he added, “however I’ve seen some nice ones.”

In 2020, when all of the unhealthy and nice video games — and people in between — added as much as 2,206, Guinness World Information licensed them as probably the most by an official scorer in NBA historical past.

Mr. Turetzky was inducted into the New York Metropolis Basketball Corridor of Fame in 2004.

Herbert Stephen Turetzky was born in Brooklyn on Dec. 19, 1945. His mom, Rose (Pearl) Turetzky, was a bookkeeper for the maker of Fox’s U-Wager chocolate syrup. His father, Sam, was a plumber. Herb performed basketball on the Brownsville Boys’ Membership (now the Brownsville Recreation Middle), the place he additionally realized the way to run a scoreboard and preserve a scorebook.

After he graduated from LIU in 1968 with a bachelor’s diploma in economics, he was a instructor after which a principal at a Brooklyn elementary college. After that, he labored as a grants author for the New York Metropolis Board of Training and owned a trophy enterprise. He earned two grasp’s levels, in schooling and in administration and supervision.

All of the whereas, Mr Turetzky was touring to Nets residence video games. His longest break from his scoring duties started in November 1968 when he was driving to a recreation in Commack, on Lengthy Island. He misplaced management of his automotive on the Lengthy Island Expressway, crossed a grass divider and crashed into an oncoming automotive. The motive force was killed.

“I used to be in a coma for about six weeks and broke my complete left facet up, creating some muscular harm, had a concussion, broke my jaw,” he instructed The Asbury Park Press in 2005.