Ben Gordon Honored

by Jay Mumford “He’d just stare at me, he never said a word,” said Brent Ridenhour, physical education teacher at Longfellow Elementary in Mount Vernon, NY. “Ben Gordon was always about business, from kindergarten onward”, he continued.  “He was a great listener and wanted to get better. He could always go to both his right and left with the ball, and he obviously was the star of our intramural games (laughs). I brought him to (Mount Vernon Varity Head Coach) Bob Cimmino’s attention when he was still a student here.” Fast forward two decades later. Ben Gordon is in NBA training camp with Rip Hamilton, plotting to make the Motor City a contender again. Meanwhile, the Auburn Hills/ United Center of his Baby BG years game him a piece of it’s corridors. Longfellow—which is also the alma matter of some of the Mount Vernon’s basketball elite, including recent standout Sherrod Wright (George Mason University) and Coach Cimmino himself—is one of 11 elementary schools in the densely populate...