high_school height_ft death_date death_place birth_place draft_year nationality article_title position height_in birth_date college name
commerce -lrb- new york city , new york -rrb- 6 16 september 1981 washington , d.c. new york city , new york 1951 american john azary
 guard 4 14 october 1929 columbia -lrb- 1948 -- 1951 -rrb- john azary
john azary

john azary -lrb- october 14 , 1929 -- september 16 , 1981 -rrb- was an american standout basketball player for columbia college -lrb- now columbia university -rrb- between 1948 -- 49 and 1950 -- 51 .
azary was born and raised in new york city .
at , he played the guard position , and when deciding on where to attend college , he chose to stay in the city to attend columbia .
at the time , college freshmen were not eligible to play varsity sports , so azary 's career actually began when he was a sophomore in 1948 -- 49 .
in his first season he scored 298 points in 20 games , which gave him a new school record for a first season scoring average at 14.9 points per game .
this average surpassed walt budko 's mark , who had graduated just prior to azary 's first year .
despite being `` undersized '' , azary was routinely given the top defensive assignments against much taller players .
he even played against centers and used his aggressiveness and hustle to outplay them .
his head coach , gordon ridings , said of azary , '' `` i never saw a harder worker than john .
he once stayed an hour after practice taking foul shots because he had missed two out of ten free throws in the previous night 's game . '' ''
in three seasons as a lion he scored 1,037 points .
his finest season came as senior in 1950 -- 51 .
he captained columbia as they rolled through the regular season undefeated , won the eastern intercollegiate league -lrb- modern day ivy league -rrb- championship , and reached the sweet 16 of the 1951 ncaa tournament .
azary was the recipient of the haggerty award , which has been given annually since 1935 -- 36 to the top male collegiate basketball player in the new york city area .
he also capped his career with a second consecutive selection to the all-eil first team as well as ncaa all-american honors by various media outlets .
after his collegiate career ended , the nba 's boston celtics chose him in that year 's draft in the seventh round -lrb- 66th overall -rrb- .
he never played in the nba ; instead , azary played in the eastern professional basketball league .
azary died of a heart attack on september 16 , 1981 , at age 51 .
