Abdoul Cisse rents from Dolph Schayes, but he had no idea who he was.

“When I went to his office to initially sign my lease I got an idea that he was some sort of basketball player,” Cisse said. “I didn’t think he was any kind of — I thought he was just like a role player, somebody who just sat on the bench.”

Needing Schayes’ phone number, he took to the Internet. Only then did he find out his landlord is a legend in the game of basketball. Schayes started 706 consecutive games from 1952-1961 when a broken jaw ended the NBA’s original ironman’s streak. Today, though, he is a humble landlord.

He got into real estate at the suggestion of his father-in-law, and it became his post-basketball career.

“My father-in-law said, after I got married, that it’s nice for a young married couple to buy a two-family house, and then when you have a family buy a one-family, and keep the two-family and rent it out,” Schayes said inside his real estate office at 200 Polk St. “He was very — he was pretty sharp in that way.”

In his day-to-day work as a landlord, Schayes keeps a fairly low profile. Building the apartments was creative and he enjoyed it, but paperwork and management can be a pain, he said.

Schayes doesn’t make rounds to houses too often. When he does, it’s usually to water the garden. And when he’s called, he’s very to-the-point.

“(He) just says, ‘Just to let you know, rent’s due in a few days,’ or whatnot,” said junior Nick Gil, who rents from Schayes. “Or maybe if you’re a week late he’s, ‘Just to let you know it’s a week late,’ and not to do it again, pretty much.”

Yet he takes an interest in his leaseholders, staying involved in the community and attending local theater productions, said junior Ethan Law, Gil’s roommate.

Gil and Law didn’t know of Schayes’ fame until Law’s parents asked, “Is that the guy that played in the NBA?” Schayes doesn’t bring up his historic NBA career, but he hardly shies away from talking basketball with those he rents to.

He doesn’t reminisce — Law checked YouTube to confirm his scoring exploits — preferring to talk about the modern era in the NBA and college basketball.

Schayes is fairly content in his work. He notes that America’s great fortunes were made in real estate. He admires how well the business has treated him and jokes that his physical involvement hardly extends beyond changing the odd light bulb without a ladder — he’s 6 feet 6 inches now.

Still, the conversations between renter and star-turned-landlord consistently return to what Schayes can no longer do.

“‘I’d be out there playing with you if I wasn’t so old,’” Law said. “He always says that.”

Published on November 1, 2012 at 1:55 am

Contact Jacob: [email protected] | @Jacob_Klinger_