Photographs by William Taufic.
In 2006, at the age of forty, Brian Kriftcher made a bold move. He walked away from Satellite Asset Management, a hedge fund he helped launch. Since then, Stamford Peace, the nonprofit organization Brian founded, has changed his life and the lives of 200 kids and counting.
“I had been involved with PeacePlayers International, which uses basketball to bridge divides between kids in conflict areas overseas,” explains the Stamford resident and former SUNY Albany player. “I was coaching at Westhill High School and was frustrated by all the talented athletes I’d lose because of poor work habits and undisciplined behavior. I wanted to create this program along the same lines as PeacePlayers International, to develop life as well as basketball skills. That way, by the time kids got to high school, they’d be more prepared and not fail out.”
The concept worked. Stamford Peace started with one team of ten- to twelve-year-olds. “Most of those kids are now playing varsity basketball,” says Brian, whose organization—funded solely by him—has grown to fourteen teams. “I hate to think where some of our players would be without the program.” That thought is enough to motivate him to give most of his time and a lot of money—$250,000 in 2011–’12 alone—to Stamford Peace.
Brian, who also coaches at St. Luke’s and taught civics in a New York school until recently, is thrilled by the mix of kids the program draws. “We have players from Stamford, Norwalk, Bridgeport, but also areas like Darien and Greenwich. The kids travel together, room together—it’s a real family environment.”
Stamford Peace competes in the Amateur Athletic Union and has taken home third and sixth places at Nationals. “For many of our inner-city kids, their first plane rides and hotel stays have been on these trips,” says Brian. “I get letters saying ‘Thanks for an unbelievable experience. I realize now what it’s going to take, and I can’t wait until next year.’ More than wins, that’s success to me.”
At the Hall of Fame Invitational this year a referee told “Coach K,” “I’ve been reffing for thirty-five years, and I’ve never seen a group of kids who were better as a combination of sportsmen and players.”
Growing up on Long Island, Brian looked up to his father, a college basketball player and renowned educator on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and his mom, a teacher in Queens. Brian’s three daughters, all Stamford Peace players, are learning from their dad too—and vice versa. “In a moment of doubt, I asked them what they tell their friends that their father does for work,” recounts Brian. “They said, ‘We tell them you’re a basketball coach and a teacher.’ I asked what they said I used to do. They replied, ‘We don’t know what you used to do.’”
The list of what their dad does is long. As the new chairman of PeacePlayers International, Brian visited the West Bank in Israel, where players with bigger differences than kids from Darien and Norwalk united on the court and off. “I never would have imagined eating dinner in a Palestinian’s home, with Jews and Arabs together,” says Brian, who is Stamford Jewish Community Center’s (JCC) past board president and supports numerous other causes. He’s modest about his financial contributions, but they total several million dollars, including $1.5 million to the JCC alone.
“I look at it as if my twenty years of for-profit earnings are being spread across the balance of my not-for-profit career,” he says. “The rewards of my current work are purely the gratification that comes from having an impact on our community and the future generations.”
Ernest Lamour, CEO of the YMCA of Stamford, comments: “Brian is truly a remarkable person. He’s genuine and generous in all aspects of his life. There are very few Brians out there and no one more deserving of this award.”