Expect a physical game from Lightning

Steve Schulman is a busy man these days. Not that he’s complaining, mind you.

His routine begins in the early morning when he arrives at the High School for American Studies, where he is both the physical education teacher and athletic director. When his duties there are done, with the inevitable meetings with a parent or three completed, he strolls across Goulden Avenue to begin the second half of his day with his second job — as head coach of the Lehman College men’s basketball team.

At least the commute is easy.

“I’m starting my 16th year at Lehman this season,” Schulman said. “Sometimes it’s a little too much with my work at American Studies. With the athletic director part of the job we have a lot of parental involvement and they sometimes forget I’m doing a lot of other stuff, too. But I enjoy it all. I love coaching at Lehman. I’m not a full-time coach, but this is the next best thing because I’m still on campus all day.”

Schulman’s teams at American Studies have enjoyed their share of success of late, with the baseball team reaching the city championship game last spring while the boys cross country team just clinched the Bronx borough championship and are headed to the city championships.

“We have a lot of good kids over there,” Schulman said.

And he thinks the same is going to hold true for his Lehman Lightning men’s basketball team this season.  The Lightning are coming off a 2014-15 campaign which saw them post an 18-9 record with a solid 12-4 finish in the CUNY Athletic Conference. And despite the duo of Jonathan Greenfield and Jerrome Jones taking a combined average of 28 points per game out the door with them due to graduation, Schulman thinks he has more than enough talent on his roster to make up for the lost offense.