Ben Horwitz’s return to Syracuse as the graduate assistant has a heightened meaning. His father, Richard, graduated from SU with a degree in accounting. Richard encouraged Ben to apply to SU in the first place. He tried to attend all of Ben’s youth basketball and high school baseball games, and he frequently visited the Carrier Dome for men’s basketball games to support Ben, a student manager from 2012-17.

In April 2016, shortly after Syracuse’s loss to North Carolina in the Final Four, Richard died. It shook Ben, who was still disappointed after SU’s season-ending loss. The silver lining from his father’s death, Ben said, was that it narrowed his focus to find something worth doing for the rest of his life. It helped him assign more value to each day. And it provided Ben a reminder to appreciate the little things in life, like his dad would: Richard grew excited when he saw Ben on TV doing the simplest of managerial tasks, such as fetching towels for players or cleaning up sweat.

“When he passed away, it was devastating,” Horwitz said. “I called him at about 5:30 that day, talking for the first time Syracuse loss. He was telling me, hours before his death, about going to watch games the next year for my senior year as a manager. I was so close to having him be that much more invested in what I cared about. That was the hardest part.”

Horwitz is a 23-year-old native of West Hartford, Connecticut, who graduated from Syracuse with a degree in sport management in 2017. He served as a student manager for four years. He returns this year to replace Katie Kolinski on the Orange bench, sharing an office between Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim and Director of Operations Kip Wellman, a former graduate assistant.   

“He was one of the best managers we’ve ever had,” Boeheim said last week of Horwitz. “The grad assistant does a lot of the same things as the managers, but now he can go on the court. Ben’s good, he knows the program well. He’ll be really helpful for us.”

Ben Horwitz, pictured in the suit and orange tie, was a manager for Syracuse from 2012-17. Courtesy of the Horwitz Family

Six weeks ago, Horwitz was a year and a half removed from SU graduation, searching for a graduate position. He created a spreadsheet that outlined available positions, emailed about 40 Division I schools and interviewed with seven. He had served as an assistant coach at Division II Post University in Waterbury, Connecticut, last season. In that role, he recruited, scouted, coached, handled meals and did laundry.

One day two months ago, Horwitz was helping organize a camp for top high school recruits in Pennsylvania. At Albright College in Reading, he had a chance encounter with Boeheim and SU associate head coach Adrian Autry, who were both recruiting there. As Horwitz was leaving the gym, Autry posed a question.

“Would you be interested in the graduate assistant position for next year?” Autry asked, according to Horwitz.

---

---

A couple of weeks later, Horwitz received a text from Kolinski, now Buffalo’s director of basketball operations. It read: “Hey, spoke with Coach (Boeheim), give him a call tomorrow, he wants to talk to you about the graduate assistant position,” Horwitz recalled.

Horwitz called Boeheim the next day and was offered the position within minutes. Wellman, whom Horwitz calls one of his mentors, had vouched for him. Two days later, Horwitz called Boeheim back to accept the position. He arrived at SU in late August and has started sitting in on coaches’ meetings.

“It is very special for him to be back in Syracuse, because his dad went there,” his mother, Bonni, said.

Ben Horwitz (right), pictured with his twin brother Dan and his late father, Richard. Richard also attended SU. Courtesy of the Horwitz Family

As a freshman at SU, Horwitz’s goal was to become the graduate assistant someday. Long term, he wants to coach a Division I team alongside his twin brother, Dan. They coped together with their father’s death, because both were in Syracuse in the summer of 2016. Dan was interning with SU Athletics and Ben stayed busy in the Carmelo K. Anthony Center as a student manager.

Horwitz said no task is beneath him. When he arrived at SU as a freshman, he put together a resume for his basketball manager application. He “was so excited, ecstatic,” just to haul the luggage on Syracuse’s charter, Bonni said. As a freshman, he told her to turn on the SU game because he wanted her to see him mopping the floor.

Horwitz’s brother said coaching appears to be his eventual destination. On his seventh-grade football team, Horwitz got a hold of the coach’s whiteboard and drew up a play that produced a 15-yard gain, one of the more successful plays all season. In the Syracuse locker room, only a few weeks into his role, he already has begun to try to leave a mark. He started a theme of the week quote routine, where he’ll put a motivational quote in the team room. One of his first,  from Walter Winchell: “Never above you. Never below you. Always beside you.”

“This means so much to me,” Horwitz said. “This is my second home.”

Published on September 17, 2018 at 12:04 pm

Contact Matthew: mguti100@syr.edu | @MatthewGut21