Newsday's Athlete of the Week is Syosset's Carly Greenbaum

If you’re looking for Carly Greenbaum, there’s no limit to the places where you can find her.

If you search in the fall, you’ll find her in between the goalposts for Syosset’s soccer team. If you search in the spring, you could find her slinging shots with her lacrosse stick. This time of year, you’ll find her cutting in from the wing and laying up a basketball.

But there’s one more place you could find the Syosset senior. If you walk through the doors of the “On Parade Diner” you could see Greenbaum laughing and joking with the rest of her teammates for Saturday “diner practices.”

“I think team bonding and building relationships within the team is the most important thing,” Greenbaum said. “ . . . I respect everyone on our team, and I’ve become so close with everyone on our team. I think that we are going to go far solely because of how close we have been.”

The tradition has existed even before Greenbaum joined the basketball team as an eighth grader. The entire team goes almost every Saturday after practice to enjoy a meal together, with Greenbaum always being a constant at those functions.

“The best moments with [Greenbaum] are going to the diner with her after practice,” teammate Kate Nelmes said. “It’s so much fun, we always have jokes and laughs.”

If you look past Nelmes’ chicken fingers — her go-to order — you could also see Sam Schneider. The sophomore point guard also joined varsity as an eighth grader and has built a steady friendship with Greenbaum over the years.

“She has always been warm and welcoming,” Schneider said. “She would always help me with the plays or drills that I didn’t feel comfortable or completely sure with,” Schneider said. “She always waves, smiles, gives you a hug [in the hallway].”.

Schneider said she’s never played with a talent like Greenbaum, who leads Syosset with 15.8 points per game and 19 three-pointers through six games this season.

“Since I’m the point guard, I’m always looking for her on the wing,” Schneider said. “So if she has an open shot, I just run back on defense. She’s making it, I just know it’s going in.”

Now if you shift your eyes away from Schneider’s plate of food — morning practices could mean an egg bagel, afternoon practices might mean a hamburger — Greenbaum said she kept her order constant last year. It was always avocado on toast with two eggs sunny-side up. This year, she’s switching it up based on the vibe of the day.

Yet despite how important the diner seems to be to the team, Greenbaum said that’s not where they’ll end up if Syosset wins the county championship this year. Instead it’ll be a team dinner with home-cooked meals, celebrating the success the team had together. Syosset sits at 5-1 this season and with some tough losses from previous seasons on Greenbaum’s mind, this winter represents another chance to make a lasting memory to reflect upon.

“I’ve been to so many county championship finals that I’ve yet to win,” Greenbaum said. “So hopefully, I’ll be looking forward to remembering the county championship I won this year.”

And while the rest of the season will determine whether that dream becomes a reality, Greenbaum and her Syosset squad will always have the diner and the moments off the court that set the mold for years to come.

“I think I would remember a Saturday diner with my friends, with my team more than a random practice,” Greenbaum said. “The memories that have happened, the moments that we’ve shared, I’ll always remember... I’m excited to come back and see where this program has gotten to and see the impact I’ve made on it.”