(PATRICK LIN – AFP/GETTY IMAGES) All I can say is I’m ashamed I didn’t think to call Tamir Goodman myself, to ask the former Jewish Jordan what he thinks about the Jeremy Lin phenomenon.

Goodman, of course, became the subject of an ethnic-fueled media madness during his high school career in Maryland, especially after appearing in Sports Illustrated and then flirting with the Terps. He recently told ESPN 600 in El Paso that he had 700 media requests in the first week after that SI story appeared, and that “my private life was gone, literally, in one night.”

“Sixteen, 17 years old, I couldn’t even go to class any more,” Goodman told the station. “There were cameras inside the school. I’d come home at night, there were cameras. I lost my private life overnight, literally, during that time. But [with] my family and Judaism, it was never about me, so when it wasn’t about me, that made it a lot easier for me.”

And so, Jeremy Lin?

“People keep mentioning it to me everywhere I go,” Goodman said. “I guess it reminds them of my story, Linsanity. Obviously I can kind of relate to what he’s going through, but I’m just so proud of him, because of his humility. He kind of brings the world back to what sport is supposed to be about. You know, perseverance, sportsmanship, humility, work ethic, dedication, understanding the game.

“He was able to succeed, because when he was on the bench he wasn’t just moping or being down, he was in the game even when he wasn’t in the game. When he was on the bench, his mind was in the game, so when he finally got his chance, he was ready to go right away. That’s mental toughness, preparation, dedication. All these things that you learn through sport, he’s kind of bringing to the table now, and reminding everybody was sports are all about.”

(Me, I’m a raging cynic who sometimes fails to properly write about sports with passion and happiness and a smile and all that, but I’m also a total sucker at heart who actually thinks sports are a weirdly magical conduit to childhood joy, which I embarrassingly wrote about in my first cover letter to The Post, and so I will sit by myself and watch Jeremy Lin highlights on repeat and jump up and down and mentally fist pump and perform air kicks and have imaginary conversations with dear friends about the phenomenon, although I’m obviously ashamed to admit it, which is why I’m burying that news in a parenthetical aside halfway down an item about the Jewish Jordan.)

“And that’s what I love about it,” Goodman continued. “Everyone’s kind of forgetting what sports are all about. We’re paying so much attention to so many negative things. It’s fresh and it’s positive and it’s good, and I hope that his character can have a positive influence on other athletes and remind them what sports are about, what it means to try to be a role model, what it means to show humility and life skills and character.

“I just like the way he’s handling everything. I guess for me maybe more than other people, I kind of relate to the story a little bit more, but it’s a positive thing and I hope that it continues to have a positive effect on as many people as possible.”

Then the host asked Goodman whether it was hard to adjust once the cameras went away, which happened fairly dramatically in his case.

“One hundred percent,” Goodman said. “I feel bad whenever I see in the news about childhood celebrities. I feel bad when that happens to people, and I would always like to reach out to them and help them and explain to them.

“Because for me, I feel like when the cameras left and I could see, I could understand how some people would feel hurt by that and not be able to handle that. My family, my friends, my religion, I was able to handle everything, I was able to handle not being in the spotlight any more, I was able to understand losing my body physically, not being able to play any more, losing my biggest professional contract, losing the money from that, seemingly losing everything that’s important in life.

“But again, it depends on how you definite success. Is success just a materialistic thing, pursuit and making a lot of money and being famous? Is that really the most important thing? Or just being the best you can be, and reacting to every situation positively or trying to at least. That, I believe, is really what success is about. Handling the challenges.”

Goodman’s career crashed out amid injuries and frequent team changes, but he started a non-profit that attempts to help basketball coaches use their sport not just for “teaching [kids] how to shoot or make a backdoor cut, but how to enhance their lives forever.” He said he has coached more than 30,000 kids, as well as producing guides for coaches and athletes on how to learn about life through basketball. And he seemed entirely upbeat about his own experience.

“How can you inspire somebody in their life if you haven’t been challenged?” he asked. “It may seem like I lost my dream when I couldn’t play basketball any more, but my challenge in life was how am I gonna react to that. In 2000, I’m the MVP of the Capital Classic, and in 2009 I can’t even play basketball any more. Most people would look at that career and say what a failure. And what I’ve learned through the whole thing is it depends how you define success….I don’t know if I would have been a better person than I strive to be today had I not gone through all those challenges.”

Say what you want about LeBron James.

Seriously, say what you want – it’s all been said before.

Associated Press
LeBron was the No. 1 high school player starting his junior year at St. Vincent/St. Mary in Akron, Ohio.

That’s what happens when you are a basketball prodigy, the most hyped, most talked about player of your generation. Talk that started when your generation had barely entered its teen-aged years.

Listen to his first high school head coach, Keith Dembrot:

“He can play at the highest level and there’s no doubt in my mind,” he told the Columbus Dispatch.

And that was after his freshman year of high school at St. Vincent/St. Mary in Akron, Ohio.

“He has the unique ability to know when to be serious and to know when to have fun,” Dembrot continued. “He’s a winner. What can you say? You don’t see 15-year-old kids do what he does.”

The hype only got bigger.

By the time he was a junior, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in an article called, ‘The Chosen One.’

It not only detailed how he already knew Michael Jordan – but had NBA sources saying he would be a lottery pick in the draft if he declared after his junior year.

LeBron clearly wasn’t just another high school hot shot. He was bigger than that.

But is he the biggest high school phenom of all-time?

Physically, no. After all, big (Wilt), bigger (Alcindor) and biggest (Ralph Sampson) came before him.

And there were those with bigger shots (ever heard of Rick Mount?) and bigger flair (Pete Maravich anyone) and – dare we say – even bigger potential to reinvent the game (let’s not forget the legend of Candace Parker).

And if you think the issue of the car loan his mom got or the flap surrounding a few free jerseys he got – which briefly made him ineligible during his senior year – makes LeBron part of the biggest off-the-court controversy, then you don’t know the story of Allen Iverson.

	Associated Press
	Lew Alcindor’s height made him a standout at an early age.

So as LeBron takes the court for this second appearance in the NBA Finals, say what you want. But appreciate how long he’s been in the spotlight – and how much (despite not having won a title … yet) he has lived up to those expectations.

After all, no one today is talking about Schea Cotton – a mid-90s streetball star in Southern California. He was LeBron before LeBron. Injuries and eligibility issues with the NCAA did him in.

And no one is talking about Lenny Cooke, either. He’s the high school phenom that didn’t pan out. The player some thought was better than LeBron. The player most now think was never the same after LeBron dominated him in a summer camp showdown. Cooke is now the biggest bust, perhaps.

But we digress.

The debate is whether LeBron is the most-hyped high school hoopster of all time. A group of Yahoo! Sports writers and editors picked a top twelve.

Who’s on it? Not Shaquille O’Neal. Not John Wall. Not even Sebastian Telfair. Not Mark Aguirre, Damon Bailey, Lloyd Daniels, Patrick Ewing, Grant Hill, Marcus Liberty, Jerry Lucas, Tom McMillan, Darius Miles, Alonzo Mourning, Greg Oden, Isiah Thomas, nor Bill Walton.

Remember, this list is about the most hyped – not the most talented.

You think Cam and Cecil Newton were the first father-son recruiting package? Hardly. It’s been going on for decades in basketball – except usually the connection is made through an assistant coaching job rather just cash. There was Milt and DeJuan Wagner to Memphis and Ed and Danny Manning to Kansas just to name a few. The ultimate, however, was Press and Pete Maravich. Press knew he had a prodigy of prodigies and was only going to send him to a school that made him coach. Head coach.

Who? For a few months following the release of a story in Sports Illustrated that dubbed Goodman ‘The Jewish Jordan,’ he was the talk of the sports world. Sid Finch, the fictional baseball prodigy penned by George Plimpton as an April Fool’s Day hoax in 1995, may be the only other ‘athlete’ to get so much attention from one story.