When he was five years out of high school and working in industry, Ray Benjamin was encountered by his high school coach to go to college. He went to Ithaca College and graduated in 1933 with a major in Physical Education. An active athlete in both high school and college, he went on to become a very successful coach and athletic director at New Hartford High School and president of Section ill for two years and of the New York Public High School Athletic Association for two years.

Born in Schenectady in 1907, Benjamin graduated from Draper High School there in 1924.

He started his coaching career in nearby Burnt Hills in 1933. After four years there, he went to Whitesboro for one year and, in 1938. began a thirty-two year career at New Hartford High School. His New Hartford basketball teams won eight Central Oneida League titles and five Section III Championships with a total record of 359 wins and 128 losses. In track the record was 185 and 75, with three league titles and seven Section III championships. In football the record was 35 and 39 and in cross-country 33 and 8. He built the first track for New Hartford, using cinders from his students' homes.

As an executive at both the Section III and state levels in the sixties, Ray Benjamin was instrumental in the development of sports in the New York Public High Schools, particularly girl’s sports. He retired in 1970 and died in 1983.