Sports

Award-winning filmmaker takes leap into AAU basketball

Thomas Jefferson boys basketball coach Lawrence (Bud) Pollard will be coaching with RENS this AAU season.

Thomas Jefferson boys basketball coach Lawrence (Bud) Pollard will be coaching with RENS this AAU season. (Philip Hall)

Dan Klores is renowned for his many accomplishments, from being an award-winning filmmaker and playwright to public relations guru and author.

He’s achieved success in all walks of life. The 60-year-old New Yorker is again looking to branch out, only this time it has nothing to do with entertainment.

Five weeks ago, he launched the New Renaissance Basketball Association (RENS), an AAU program he created through donations from friends and co-workers.

Klores grew up a huge basketball fan in Coney Island and played for Lincoln before it became, well, Lincoln. His three sons, ages 13, 10 and 8, all play the sport and he spent time coaching one of their teams last year.

Over the years, he has made contacts with numerous AAU coaches and the ones he became close with – the programs directors, Jesse Shapiro, Greg Tejada and Billy Council – expressed a desire to have a program to call their own.

“I know a lot of these coaches and I felt like this could be a lot of fun,” said Klores, who won the 2008 Peabody Award for Black Magic, an ESPN documentary that tells the story of the injustice of the Civil Rights Movement, told through the lives of basketball players and coaches who attended Historically Black Colleges. “These guys are all hungry for a change. They were hungry to start something themselves and I believe in them.

“I’ve known them all for years, I’ve seen them interact with children, I’ve seen them coach basketball, I’ve seen how much they care and they sort of all felt a little bit as if they weren’t fully appreciated. We got to talking and rather than one, it grew into a conversation of let’s try our own organization.”

As of now, RENS has seven teams – 4th grade, 5th grade, 6th grade, two 7th grade teams, one 8th grade team and a 17U high school team. The teams have all enjoyed success in the Gauchos Roundball Classic and are currently in the playoffs.

By February, they will have three high school teams – 17U, 16U and 15U in addition to 16U and 15U teams based out of Florida, run by Tejada, an assistant coach at Miramar HS, who has previously coached with national powerhouse New Heights.

Shapiro, a former partner of Fastbreakkids, a youth instructional sports group in Manhattan and a longtime AAU coach, will run the RENS high school division. He’s taken six teams to the Division I National Championships in Orlando, Fla., and will have plenty of help from, among others, Thomas Jefferson coach Lawrence (Bud) Pollard.

RENS is not sneaker affiliated, like so many of the city’s programs, though Klores said he has been in contact with a company that has expressed interest. Klores has raised all the money himself for the program – “I’ve been calling around,” he said – enough for all the teams to do plenty of traveling. Head coaches and assistants will be paid through Klores’ fundraising. Kids will not be charged.

“He’s doing the right thing and his heart is in the right place,” Pollard said. “He’s doing it solely out of love; that’s one of the parts of New York City basketball that’s truly missed. Everybody has a personal agenda. He’s doing it because it’s something he wants to do, he’s not doing it with a motive or for personal interest.”

RENS mission isn’t necessarily to become the city’s elite AAU program, Klores said. He wants to win, of course, like any competitor. The program’s mantra is “all for one and one for all.”

Klores has set up free tutoring opportunities through faculty and students at Riverdale Country Day School for the program’s players. The program’s players who do not have healthcare will be afforded it through Children’s Health Fund, a charity Klores is involved with.

“Our goal is to improve the lives of these kids,” he said.

Klores has an endless rolodex to make it happen. Through his work, he has forged relationships with future NBA Hall of Famer Reggie Miller, former New York Knicks general manager Donnie Walsh, Knicks legend Earl (The Pearl) Monroe and Phoenix Suns superstar Steve Nash, among others. He plans to bring in a few of them for clinics.

“Dan has all the right people in the right places,” Pollard said. “This can be something real positive.”

Shapiro, the passionate high school director, is pretty confident of RENS success.

“It’s gonna be huge,” he promised. “It’s definitely going to be the next big program. We have somebody that is one of the most powerful guys, not only in the city, but the country behind us. He doesn’t fail when he does something.”

zbraziller@nypost.com