A competitive and charitable hoops league

Seeking a way to continue playing competitive basketball as they entered the work world five young men established the nonprofit Charity Through Sports, a Queens-based hoops league that is coming to the Five Towns this season.

The 5-year old organization that caters to Orthodox Jewish men began as the brainchild of Eric Abraham, Brian Berkowitz, Chaim Rubin, Ezra Schwartz and Yehuda Shur, who began their league in a local Forest Hills temple and within one year, needed the two gymnasiums of Forest Hills High School to accommodate the expanding amount of teams. Avi Noman Cohen has joined that core group as an organizer this year.

As a few of the primary organizers have moved to Woodmere, the group will also have a Five Towns league and plans to play its Monday games at Lawrence Middle School.

“The whole concept came about because there was no competitive basketball for these former college players,” said Berkowitz, who noted that he and other would have to travel into Manhattan to find the type of competition they were seeking.

They began with 45 players in the first year and grew to 16 teams and expect to have approximately 300 between the two leagues for the upcoming season that is slated to begin the week after Thanksgiving and run through April. The Five Towns league has a dozen squads confirmed, Berkowitz said.

There are a dozen games and each team receives four byes (dates they don’t play). Playing on Mondays stretches the season due to all the school holidays on those days, Berkowitz said.

Teams pony up approximately $2,100 each to offset costs of building rental, insurance and referees. From the first season on, the group found itself with a surplus and through the vote of the winning team, has donated those excess funds to a variety of Jewish charities. An estimated $350 per team tax-deductible contribution is given to charity. Teams can also find sponsors to pay their entry fee.

“I ended up keeping score every week the following after my initial involvement,” said Ezra Schwartz, who jokingly added his playing years are behind him as younger and better players have joined the league.

League rules are posted on the Charity Through Sports website (charitythroughsports.com) and along with the typical regulations regarding the games — two, 20-minute halves with a 3-minute halftime — there are a trio of rulers regarding “ringers,” a player usually better than the others that tilts the outcome to that team.

Maintaining the competitive edge, the league keeps up to date standing and statistics, has playoffs and a championship game and an All-Star game — based on those stats — and a Most Valuable Player award and Rookie of the Year. Following this season there could be a championship game between the winners of the Queens and Five Towns leagues, Berkowitz said.

As basketball is considered the “city game” the organization has partnered with the National Basketball League’s New Jersey Nets (a team expected to be playing in Brooklyn for the 2012-‘13 season).

On Jewish-Heritage Night, the Nets allowed the league to play its All-Star game on its courts, provided discount game tickets and a suite for a kosher buffet. Berkowitz said the group is trying to make the same connection with the Knicks.

“This is our NBA,” Abraham said, “for Jewish-Orthodox young adults starting out, whether the motivation is to get out of the house, play some ball, married or not and giving to charity at the end of the season is pretty cool.” For more information email cts-basketball@gmail.com.