• Dribbl

  200 East 87th Street, 212-717-7651; dribbl.com

  When Dalton athletic director Teddy Frischling founded Dribbl nine years ago to teach would-be Stephon Marburys the basics of basketball, he decided to keep out the competition part. The kids, from first through eighth grades, play timed games, but they don’t keep score. In order to maintain competitive balance, the coaches—about one for every four players—also play, and their role is to make sure everyone gets to handle the ball, with an emphasis on the three-pass rule down the court (seven sessions costs $315). Some of the kids are products of the more competitive grown-ups out there: At recent games, filmmaker and basketball dad Spike Lee was cheering as if he were courtside at the Garden.

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine