He’s been playing basketball for 70 years, and he’s still got a killer hook shot

Maybe the Kleinlife over-55-year-old spring league championship game wasn’t the big local basketball event of the night — 76ers fans would argue anyway, with a playoff game in South Philly — but this was all business to Norty Levine and the rest of the guys. Watching them filter into the basement gym of a community center just off Roosevelt Boulevard in the Northeast, you tried to guess which was 84-year-old Norty. … Not him? Or him?

Really, him? Norty Levine was a little taller than you imagined, and leaner.

Don’t look for any great shakes, Norty said after a handshake — “I’m just going to be running up and down out there.” Pregame, Norty practiced his hook shot, which didn’t seem to need the practice. That used to be Norty’s main shot, he said, “lefty and righty.”

Norty’s squad, averaging 68 years old between the six of them, got off to a quick start, getting a few buckets before Norty even got a touch.

“My guy is playing two feet off me," Norty mentioned at the first timeout.

Maybe Norty’s man-to-man defender was just playing the odds.

“Norty’s open," a teammate confirmed.

The oldest out there by almost a decade and a half wasn’t just running up and down. It was not hard to imagine what Norty must have brought to a game back in his prime. Seventy-four years into his hoops career, Norty’s moves all seemed purposeful. Catching a pass, Norty turned toward the hoop. Early on, he faked a handoff, two dribbles to his right, a baby hook. … Nope, didn’t quite fall. Norty got a hand and then another hand on the rebound but he was boxed out, couldn’t grab it.

“I’m not saying this because he’s my cousin — when all these guys are retired, he’ll still be playing," said Elliot Gevis, a starting guard for Arcadia back when it was Beaver College. Gevis had shown up to watch the big game, after he got a little exercise in.

Norty said he has shrunk from his old playing height of 6-foot-2. As for staying lean ...

“Playing at an outdoor court, Max Myers playground, the guy died right in front of me," Norty said later. “That was when I was 32. I stopped eating meat. I haven’t eaten meat in 52 years. I eat chicken and fish, not red meat.”

Norty figures so much of his competition over the years is gone from this earth now. The rest retired, the leagues mostly defunct. Over the years, he said, he played against the likes of John Chaney and Sonny Hill in independent leagues. It’s all believable as you watch. Maybe big strides have been replaced by little steps, but this game was full-court and Norty did not take plays off while he was out there. When he guarded you, he’d keep track of you with a light forearm. He might slip under a screen and meet you on the other side, but he was ready to block the path to the hoop, legs and arms widening. He never gave up on a play.

Another timeout.

“Set a screen for me," said Bob Smilowitz, who is 6-7 and 58 years old and owns a janitorial company. He is the team’s player-head coach, and understands how to use his height inside.

“Set a screen? Norty said. “You want me to set a screen?”

Let’s pause to wonder if maybe this was the first time in the recorded history of basketball that an 84-year-old was explicitly instructed to set a screen.

“All right, look for it," Norty said.

Damned if a screen for Big Bob didn’t get set. For Norty, getting that right seemed as simple as breathing. He leaned into the screen with his upper body, but his legs were set. Defenders switched off the screen — nobody on either side needed a tutorial on how this game is to be played. Point, counterpoint, counter to the counter, etc. It all resulted in Big Bob scoring on a smaller defender.

A minute later, the big man got double-teamed inside, Norty’s man cheating toward him. This time, Big Bob got the ball out to Norty. The oldest man in the game hit a little 14-footer, all net.

“Norty can make that shot," the other team’s coach yelled to his guys from the sideline.

When Norty took a break, he yelled encouragement. “Nice rebound, Mark. … Nice hustle, Victor.”

A tip about Norty had come from Rich Krassen, who had played against Norty for decades and retired from hoops six years ago when he was 72. Krassen wondered if I wanted to write about his book, “Breadcrumbs on My Journey: Celebrating Life in the City of Brotherly Love,” a terrific memoir of growing up in Philadelphia. I said it was hard to write about him since he’d retired from hoops.

So Krassen mentioned Norty, that I really needed to write about Norty, and maybe get a plug in for the book. (Available on Amazon. See my blurb on the back cover.) “You can backdoor me into the piece," Krassen noted.

“Everyone knows Norty — he’s respected around the country," Krassen added. “There are a lot of stories about his elbows and physicality."

Norton Levine, born in New York, moved to South Florida when he was 9, in 1943. “I played football and basketball in high school. I got a scholarship to the University of Miami for basketball.”

He only stayed a year.

“I was one of these high school heroes who was pushed through school," Norty said. “They did everything for me. After basketball, I had three failing grades [in his senior year of high school]. I had a breakdown. I got to Miami, wrecked. Why they even kept me I don’t know.”

When his family moved to Philadelphia, he decided to join them.

“I hooked up with all these independent teams in Philly," Norty said. “I hooked up with the Jewish league. It used to be a good league.”

>> From our archives: Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame honors dynasty of local basketball league

He ticks off the courts he used to play on, from 25th and Diamond to Belfield Rec Center. Opponents included future pros such as Larry Cannon, Wayne Hightower, Gene Banks. Eventually, Norty played in the Senior Olympics in the 75-to-79 age bracket, winning the three-on-three gold. One of his teammates was former Temple player Dan Fleming, a 6-foot-6 reserve on the Owls’ 1956 Final Four team. Norty wasn’t the scorer on that team. The third guy had played at Rider.

“The interesting thing, when I was a scorer, it seems like we never won many championships," Norty said. “When I was a role player we won all these things.”

Even those guys retired, though. Norty knows there is a 85-89 category, but even if he could find a couple of teammates, he doesn’t think he can get away. He’s still working every day, he said, making pickups for his daughter Randi’s restaurant. She’s got pancreatic cancer so it’s the least he can do.

“I should be retired, sitting on the beach with some babes, but I’m picking up sacks," Norty said. “That’s the way it is.”

He confesses to exercising every day.

“I used to get a lot more pulls, hamstring and calf," Norty said. “I picked up this workout from a martial arts camp. I do a lot of squats and lunges and then jumping jacks, and then I stretch. You have to be pretty fortunate.”

He has a fiancee, so life is full beyond basketball. It just always includes basketball.

Asked for his career highlight, Norty said, “The most thrilling is, I play with my son. Mitch is 58. We play pickup together on Tuesday afternoons. I used to play Sunday, but they cut out that run.”

His teammates in this over-55 division vary from barely over 55 to “please don’t put my age.” Ray, maybe or maybe not next oldest, still nails three-pointers. So does Larry, age 66, with a nice touch and a bounce to his step. Victor, 56, introduced as a former pro soccer player in Israel, will take the jumper or pump-fake and go to the hoop. Mark, 61, will bang around and take it in good humor when the coach yells not to pass Mark the ball as they’re protecting a lead.

With Larry in severe foul trouble — he had five fouls; this league plays it like the NBA, you’re out on the sixth — Big Bob said, “Norty, you’re going to play Footy.”

Footy, the opposition’s big scorer, was causing problems at the other end. The lead was enough that they could afford a few hoops even if Norty let him get by. They needed Larry in the game. Norty already had held up his end with a few more hoops. Norty took the assignment seriously, often picking up Footy full-court trying to deny him the ball. On offense, Norty set a couple of more screens away from the ball, unasked, and also knew how to act incredulous when called for a foul.

After the clock wound down and enough free throws went in, Norty’s team was officially the Kleinlife over-55 spring league champion.

“Am I allowed to touch the trophy?" quipped Mark, who hadn’t been allowed to touch the ball at the end.

At the other end of the city, a Sixers-Raptors playoff game had tipped off. Maybe that game and this game only shared so many traits, but do you think Joel Embiid or anyone playing at the Wells Fargo Center will find a hoop to shoot at six decades from now? The game belongs to Norty and Big Bob and Footy just as much as the pros.

“A major part of my life," Norty said. “That’s all I can say.”

Holding his trophy, sitting and grabbing a swig from a water bottle, chewing his peppermint sugarless gum as he did all game, Norty Levine added before a visitor took off: “Don’t forget to mention Rich Krassen and his book.”