Ramsey starred for NYU and played for St. Louis, the Knicks and Syracuse but is best known for being part of Knicks telecasts from 1972-1982, working alongside Bob Wolff, Dick Stockton, Andy Musser, Marv Albert and Jim Karvellas, having broadcast the club’s last championship season and then some very lean years.
"A case in point involved Al Barden, who, after starring for Boys High School in Brooklyn (now Boys and Girls), was recruited to N.Y.U. by Ramsey while he was playing there.
“Al was a tough kid with a habit of getting into some trouble,” Ramsey told Harvey Araton of The New York Times in 2009. “So I stayed on him, made sure he was going to class, doing the things he needed to stay eligible.”
When Barden’s basketball career was over, Ramsey, mindful of the problems athletes have in transitioning to a new phase of life, hired Barden as his replacement to direct a high school program for at-risk students. They remained friends through the years.
One day, Barden, living in California, phoned Ramsey to tell him of the birth of his son, whom he had named Ramses, ostensibly for the pharaohs of ancient Egypt as a symbol of everlasting strength.
But there was more to it than that.
“Replace the ‘s’ with a ‘y’ and what does it spell?” Barden asked Ramsey. “I really named him for you.”
In June 2009, the Giants selected Ramses Barden, a receiver from Cal Poly, in the third round of the N.F.L. draft, and he spent four seasons with them.
When Ramses was drafted, Al Barden, speaking to The Times, said of Cal Ramsey, “He could get you to do anything just because of who he was: someone you just had to respect.""