Abraham, Eskinazi going hard after coaching dreams

By Jay Turner

With hard work, a lot of persistence, and a bit of good fortune and timing, two of Canton’s brightest young coaches are chasing big dreams and making the most of new and exciting career opportunities.

Israel “Izzy” Abraham

While they have taken very different paths to their current destinations, both Izzy Abraham, CHS ’08, and Nathaniel Eskinazi, CHS ’09, have built up impressive resumes over the past few years and have set their sights on the highest levels of their respective sports.

For Abraham, that means a job someday coaching in the National Football League, and in a few short weeks he will get a taste of what it’s like as he heads to Nashville to serve as a coaching intern for the Tennessee Titans.

As the recipient of a Bill Walsh NFL Minority Coaching Fellowship, Abraham will work as an assistant running backs coach under NFL coaching veteran Sylvester Croom. He will assist with practices, participate in team meetings, and be treated as a full-fledged member of the staff for the duration of the Titans’ training camp.

“I will be assisting [Croom] and at the same time he will be coaching me up,” explained Abraham, who coached running backs for Susquehanna University (PA) last season and at Stonehill College from 2012-14. “Basically, whatever he needs me to do I’ll do. I’m excited for the opportunity and think it will be a great learning experience.”

As a member of the running backs staff, Abraham will be working with a position group that’s led by DeMarco Murray, the 2014 NFL Offensive Player of the Year, and Derrick Henry, last year’s Heisman Trophy winner and a highly touted rookie out of Alabama.

But as fun as it will be to brush shoulders with NFL superstars, Abraham said he will approach the experience as a professional and is not too worried about being star-struck.

“Football is football when it comes down to it,” said the former Bulldog standout. “I’m more so in awe of having an opportunity to work in an NFL camp.”

Abraham said it also helps that he has been around the sport for nearly his entire life, going back to his earliest years in Canton Pop Warner. At Canton High School, he was a captain and an All-Hockomock selection in 2007, and he went on to play for four years at Endicott College, switching from cornerback to fullback for his final two seasons.

During those last two years, Abraham’s Gulls amassed a record of 19-4, punctuated by an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2010 and an ECAC North Bowl title in 2011. He then went straight into coaching after graduating from Endicott, joining Robert Talley’s staff at Stonehill beginning in the fall of 2012.

Abraham said it was Talley who encouraged him to apply for the Bill Walsh fellowship, and he dutifully submitted his application every year until learning this year that he had been selected. He considers it a tremendous honor and is proud to be part of a program that has helped launch the NFL careers of hundreds of minority coaches, including current Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin — the youngest in NFL history to lead his team to a Super Bowl title.

In addition to his opportunity with the Titans, Abraham also landed a job this past year as an external scout for the Cleveland Browns. He did the scouting work on a part-time basis in 2015 while coaching Susquehanna, and in the coming season he will shift his focus to full-time scouting while continuing to pursue his dream of being an NFL coach.

Nathaniel Eskinazi

Meanwhile, as Abraham seeks out opportunities on the gridiron, fellow CHS graduate Eskinazi is continuing to make a name for himself on the hardwood, most recently as the head coach of the Hørsholm 79ers, a basketball club based in Denmark. This past season, Eskinazi coached the U16/U17 squads and led a team that had won three games in each of the past four seasons to the Scandinavian championship and the brink of a national title.

“I taught them how to play basketball as a team and not as individuals,” Eskinazi said of his players, who became like a second family to him as he navigated a new country and a new language. “My focus as a coach is on development, and I helped teach them what it means to win.”

Although he never played basketball competitively, Eskinazi cut his teeth in the sport under Jim Baron and Dan and Bobby Hurley at the University of Rhode Island, where he served as head men’s basketball manager for two and a half seasons. After graduating from URI in 2013 with an economics degree, he landed a job as head JV coach and varsity assistant at Hope High School in Providence, where he gained an even greater appreciation for the coaching profession.

“I just love coaching and told my parents that I wanted to be a coach, and sure enough I made my dream come true,” he said.

Through connections he had made in the Rhode Island basketball circuit, Eskinazi landed an interview with Hørsholm and eagerly accepted the coaching position when it was offered to him.

Moving on his own to Denmark was a big adjustment, he said — he went from driving everywhere in Providence to riding a bicycle — but he felt at home in the practice gym and on the sidelines and quickly won over his players with his knowledge and passion for the game.

After being blown out in the first game of their first preseason tournament, Eskinazi led the 79ers to several straight wins and the tournament championship. The squad then reeled off 10 straight victories, and after a tough loss to their big rival, the 79ers did not lose again until the national championship final.

As for the Scandinavian championship victory, Eskinazi said it was by far the biggest achievement of his young coaching career, highlighted by thrilling comebacks and sensational play in front of a packed crowd. Hørsholm had never even placed in the tournament prior to last season, and Eskinazi became the youngest coach to ever lead a team to the title.

“You’re competing against teams from all of the Scandinavian countries, and you win it for your country and you win it for your club,” he said. “And what a moment it was. It was just incredible.”

Eskinazi said he made a lifetime bond with all of his players, but he also wants to keep growing as a coach and therefore decided to accept a new position with a different club, SISU Basketball, starting in the 2016-17 season. Eskinazi will coach the U19 team and will serve as an assistant on the men’s team, which competes in the highest professional league in Denmark, Basketligaen.

He is currently staying in New York with his sister but will head back to Denmark in 45 days to start preparing for the upcoming season. Eskinazi said his sole focus at this time is the SISU team and developing his players, but his goal is to one day land a head coaching job at a Division 1 men’s basketball program in the United States.

“It’s crazy — things are moving so quickly, but this is my career from here on out,” he said. “I’m a young coach and an up-and-coming coach. They play a different style of basketball in Europe compared to the States, but it’s helping me to grow as a coach tremendously and I’m hoping to take it year by year and reach my goal.”

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