The 1960 Linton High School graduate went on to star at New York University, then a prominent college basketball school on a national level, and enjoy a professional playing career that included one season in the NBA.

A 6-foot-4 guard with tremendous leaping ability, Kramer was a Parade All-American in high school, a consensus first-team All-American as a junior at NYU, and has been inducted to the Capital District Basketball Hall of Fame, Schenectady City School District Athletic Hall Fame, the NYU Athletic Hall of Fame and the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

The San Francisco Warriors selected him with the sixth pick overall in the 1964 NBA draft, and his pro career included time with the Warriors and New York Knicks in 1964-65 and one season with the New York Nets of the NBA’s rival, the American Basketball Association.

Kramer also played for the Schaefer Brewers, a semi-pro team based in Schenectady, in the 1960s and ’70’s.

All of that put him in position to be idolized by Schenectady kids who followed him through the city schools, including eventual Basketball Hall of Famer Pat Riley, who was a freshman at Linton when Kramer was a senior.

“He was a legend, that’s for sure,” SCSD Athletic Hall of Fame director Bob Pezzano said.

“Sad day today. We lost a legend, that’s for sure,” echoed Don Blaha, who graduated from Mont Pleasant High School in 1959 and was Kramer’s teammate for three seasons at NYU. “He was a very special person.”

Kramer and Blaha were rivals in high school in both basketball and high jumping on the track.

At NYU, they joined forces to help the Purple Violets go as far as the Division I NCAA Tournament.

“I had the good fortune to play with him, and what a pleasure that was, to watch him play,” Blaha said. “And highlighted by his junior year, when he averaged 29.3 points per game. Averaged.

“We were in the top 10 at times. We played all of the best teams throughout the country. I remember he had 42 [points] against Illinois. I believe he had 42 against Georgetown at one time, too. And that 29.3 was before the 3-point shot. He would’ve had some, but most of his points were scored from the foul line in, because he had great leaping ability.

A 1968 Albany Law School graduate, Kramer was appointed to a Surrogate Court judgeship in Schenectady by New York Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1993.

In 2009, he was elected as a Justice of the New York State Supreme Court and continued to gain re-certification to that post after having reached the mandatory retirement age for New York judges in 2012.

“Looking back at it, that doesn’t surprise me,” Blaha said. “I didn’t know that was going to be his possible route after he tried from pro basketball, that he would go to law school. He loved that, too. He was still doing it in his 70s because he loved going to work and doing it.”