Early Life
Herb Bernstein was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY and was a star basketball player in high school and college. He attended Southern Methodist University on a basketball scholarship, then earned his B.S. and M.A. in Education at New York University. He briefly played professional basketball for the Milwaukee Bucks.
He went on to become a basketball coach and teacher in the New York City School system (at Midwood High School and Eastern District High School), where his day to day encounters with "special students" was the topic of conversations with his friend and fellow teacher Gabe Kaplan. Those conversations led to the widely popular '70s TV series Welcome Back, Kotter. The characters and their antics were largely based on Bernstein's students and experiences.
Bernstein always dabbled in music, starting with violin lessons at the age of four. He later learned piano and played in bands until he broke into the record business full-time in the mid-1960s.
Read more about this topic: Herb Bernstein
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.”
—Gerald Early (b. 1952)
“Had I but died an hour before this chance
I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant
There’s nothing serious in mortality.
All is but toys. Renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)