Maybe you’ve heard of George Dalzell, maybe you haven’t. Although he didn’t comÂpete against Rockland scholastic competition, Dalzell, a New City resident, left an indelible mark at every stop in his storied athletic career.

Take his post-collegiate basketball career, for example. Dalzell played for three and a half years on a traveling U.S. All-Star team that toured every continent but Antarctica. Dalzell averaged close to 30 points per game during that barnstorming odyssey.
Although he never reached the highest level of professional basketball, Dalzell was chosen in the fourth round of the 1967 National Basketball Association draft by the Detroit Pistons, and was selected in the third round of the 1968 American Basketball Association draft by the Dallas Chapparals, who promptly traded his rights to the Denver Rockets. After returning from his extended tour with the U.S. team in 1971, Dalzell attended the Rockets’ training camp, but was cut in the preseason.

Opponents in the Metropolitan Basketball League knew the name George Dalzell. Boy, did they know it. In the 1971 season, Dalzell averaged a Chamberlain-esque 48 points per game while playing for a team sponsored by the Rockland County Carpenters Union. That year, he broke scoring records in the Kingston, Poughkeepsie and Staten Island tournaments. He also scored 50 points against the Letchworth Big Five, then a highly regarded Rockland semipro team that featured such stars as Paul Toscano and AI and Art Orlando.

Dalzell’s collegiate career was nearly as sensational. At Colgate University, he earned AlIÂ-American honorable mention accolades his senior year, 1967. In his freshman year, he broke the school one-game scoring mark of 46 points, which had been set by future NBA great Carl Braun. Dalzell averaged 24 points per game his junior year, which ranked 23rd in the nation, and averÂaged 26.5 points a game as a senior, when he was team captain. He also earned All-East honors in 1966.

At the Hackley School in Tarrytown, from which he graduated in 1963, Dalzell excelled in basketball, cross country and baseball. Hackley competed in the eight-team Ivy League and the 61-team Metropolitan (New York) Prep School League. In basketball, Dalzell was a three-year team captain and three-year All-Ivy League player. In both his junior and senior years, he was: league MVP; All-Westchester County first team; Metropolitan Area Prep School Player of the Year; and Metropolitan Area All-Prep first team.

Dalzell set the following basketball scoring records while at Hackley: career school record,~485 points; season school record, 591 points; Ivy League one-season record, 402 points; and Ivy League career record, 997 points. Additionally, he was Westchester County scoring leader in his junior (24.2 ppg) and senior (28.7 ppg) seasons. Led by Dalzell, Hackley was Westchester County Private/Parochial School team champion in 1963 and runner-up in 1962.

In cross country, Dalzell, the team captain, broke the 14-year-old Hackley course record and earned All-Westchester County laurels his senior year, when he won 12 duals meets and took one second place in 14 meets. He also finished second in the league both his junior and senior years. He also captained the baseball team his senior year and earned All-Ivy League acclaim as a pitcher. Dalzell tossed two one-hitters, six two-hitters and registered seven shutouts, en route to a career mark of 15-5.

Although he had minimal experience in organized football, the 6-foot-2, 190-pound Dalzell showed enough athletic ability to be chosen as a free agent by the Dallas Cowboys in 1967, after graduation from Colgate. He opted to pursue basketball, however.
Dalzell, a 55-year-old New City resident, is a commercial real estate broker specializing in leasing and management. He and his wife, Susan, have two grown children, Christopher, 28, and Lauren, 21.