NEW YORK — Bob Hurley Sr. is already a member of the Naismith Hall of Fame.

Now he wants his longtime friend Tom Konchalski to join him. “Tom should be in the Hall of Fame,” Hurley, the legendary retired coach at St. Anthony’s High School in Jersey City, said Saturday night at Fordham University as he accepted the inaugural Tom Konchalski “Values of the Game Award” from the Tom Konchalski Foundation.

“Eventually they’ll come to their senses on this. He was nominated last year, I wrote a letter on his behalf. I had tears on the paper because I was thinking of all the things that he and I shared.”

The award presentation was part of the “Tom Konchalski Classic,” a three-day, four-team event at Fordham that also includes Holy Cross, Stonehill and the University of Illinois – Chicago. The Tom Konchalski Foundation is dedicated to raising funds to provide need committed to learning on and off the court. Josh Powell, a freshman at Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens, Konchalski’s alma mater, was honored with a scholarship at the event.

Along with Hurley, legendary New York City point guard Kenny Anderson, now the head coach at Fisk University(TN), also spoke to the audience about Konchalski’s impact on him. Anderson, who attended Molloy and later starred for the New Jersey Nets, is not in the Naismith Hall of Fame.

Anderson said Konchalski “Changed the way I was when I was growing up…I started becoming a good young man.”

“I’m kind of shook up talking about Tom Konchalski…He’s definitely a big part of my life.” he added. “It was a blessing knowing him.”

By Adam Zagoria ! For NJ Advance Media/NJ.com