Besides the occasional intramural game at Brandeis, Michael Gliedman '85 was never much of a basketball player.

Yet, the Scarsdale, N.Y. native has found himself "running point" for one of the largest and fastest-growing teams in the NBA: the league's information technology department.

Gliedman is in his 12th year as senior vice president and chief information officer with the NBA, a job that, according to his biography on the league's website, has him "[overseeing] the league's drive to become one of the preeminent technology-driven sports organizations in the world."

More specifically, Gliedman's team serves nearly 250 technical systems across 13 different countries.

"On one hand, it's a traditional IT [information technology] setup," Gliedman explained. "We run the data center and the network, and we provide systems and services for business-specific groups across the organization."

"Then, on the other hand, we run things like stats, clocks, scoring systems and web systems and provide data and video feeds to companies such as ESPN and Turner [Broadcasting System], various gaming companies as well as overseas partners."

Gliedman is also responsible for the league's vast archive of hundreds of thousands of hours of high-quality video.

Each highlight is annotated with statistics and other information that help to give a full picture of the games played. Furthermore, the videos are also rated based on the quality of the play.

"So if someone wanted to find all three-star footage of Kobe Bryant shooting three-pointers, they can just search our archive," he said.

Gliedman was a Computer Science major at Brandeis and then turned an internship at Logical Resources, Inc. on Bear Hill Road in Waltham to a full-time job.

After graduating from Columbia Business School, Gliedman got a job with Booz Allen & Hamilton, a business strategy and technology consulting firm, and he specialized in media and entertainment technology.

He then became the senior vice president of application development for InfoWorks—a Viacom technology service—before joining the NBA in 1999.

Though he doesn't have much of a background in sports, Gliedman said that his work at Booz Allen and Viacom prepared him for the job of CIO.

"I've always been a media and entertainment person, and I consider sports another type of media and entertainment," he explained.

"We deal with the same types of systems: TV, video, ad sales and systems that traffic shows and commercials. That's consistent with the work I did at Booz Allen and Viacom."

Gliedman's interest in media and entertainment sprang not from a love of sports, but from his musical background.

While at Brandeis, Gliedman played guitar in a cover band called Occasional Sax. The group played various shows in the area, including house parties and several gigs at the Stein.

Eventually, Occasional Sax broke up, but after several tryouts, Gliedman ended up joining an all-original band that became a local favorite on Boston's WFNX during the late '80s.

"In 1990, we decided to take a break, but by chance, we all ended up moving to the New York area. At some point 10 years later, we ran into each other and thought it might be fun to give it another go."

The group, now called Element 4, performs every few months in New York City. According to the band's website, the group plays in "a retro '80s style."

While the recently concluded NBA lockout may have helped some musical careers—with players such as Boston Celtics guard Marquis Daniels and Milwaukee Bucks guard Stephen Jackson releasing their own tracks during the 160-day work stoppage—Gliedman didn't have as much free time to work with his band.

"We were as busy as ever," he said. "We were preparing for the season to start at any moment, so there really wasn't any downtime."

Though he didn't come to the NBA because of a passion for basketball, Gliedman said the he has certainly developed one along the way.

"I didn't come here because of the sports, but I've been here for more than a decade, and you begin to absorb it by osmosis," he said.

"It's a regular part of our day—watching videos and monitoring games and making sure everything looks and works right."

Gliedman can be proud of his work, as the NBA is widely regarded as one of the most technologically savvy leagues among the four major sports.

As leader of the pack, it looks like Gliedman may be wearing the captain's "C" on his suit jacket for years to come.