MAC battle shoots for ‘chai lights’

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:22:51 +0000

via Cleveland Jewish News

Senderoff’s journey includes return to Kent

After seven years as Kent State University’s associate head coach (2002-2006, 2008-2011), the school promoted Rob Senderoff, a member of Temple Beth Shalom in Hudson, to head coach on April 7, 2011. His predecessor, Geno Ford, held the position for three years before becoming head coach at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.

Senderoff inherits a team that finished second to Akron in the 2011 Mid-American Conference Tournament following a 66-65 loss. Despite that, the Golden Flashes were voted as preseason favorites by league media for the 2011-2012 season.

“It’s a great feeling,” said Senderoff, who belongs to the Jewish Coaches Association. “To have a chance to be named the head coach here with a school with great tradition, it was a great honor.”

Senderoff played basketball in high school and initially had no coaching aspirations, but he said his lack of talent helped guide him to his current profession.

“I was a bad player who was a lot like a bad actor,” he said. “I kept hearing, ‘Cut, cut, cut!’ from my coaches when I tried out … I tried to play in college at a Division III school. I wasn’t good enough, but I still loved basketball. I knew at that point I wanted to coach for a living.”

Senderoff has coached at six schools in 15 years. His résumé reads like an indecisive transfer student’s nightmare: two years at Miami University in Oxford, two at Fordham University in New York, two at Yale University in Connecticut, one at Towson University in Maryland, four at KSU, and two at Indiana University.

Despite his lengthy stint as an assistant coach, Senderoff takes things one day at a time in his new position. “I’ve been through a lot of situations, but none of them as a head coach,” he said. “Each day, whether it’s ‘Are we practicing too long, too short, have we got enough stuff in? How are our kids’ legs? Are they tired?’ There’s something new that I’m facing. I feel like I have a really good staff of assistants that help me get through it.”

Senderoff left Indiana in 2008 to return to KSU. The most difficult part of being back in Northeast Ohio? “The winter,” Senderoff said, laughing. “I’m from New York. it’s not like the winters are great there. But it’s a different level of winter here … and a different level of snow.”

He lives in Stow with his wife of 10 years, Lauren, and his two daughters, Samantha, 8, and Rachel, 3. His home is three miles from campus and about four miles from his synagogue.

“The temple has been really, really good for both of us, my wife in particular,” said Senderoff, whose wife is from Long Island, N.Y. “We grew up in large Jewish communities. There’s less of a Jewish population where we live now. So it’s nice for us to have the temple so close for my wife and for my daughter to be able to have that connection to their heritage. That’s obviously really important to both of us.”

Beth Shalom’s Rabbi Sheldon Ezring, who brought his family to Senderoff’s games in the past, said he was a “very lucky rabbi.”

“I was lucky enough to have Dolph Schayes, one of the top 50 NBA players in the first 50 years of the league in my congregation (Temple Concord) in Syracuse (N.Y.),” said Ezring, who was a rabbi at that synagogue for 20 years. “I’m equally honored to have Rob Senderoff, one of the up-and-coming basketball coaches and his family in my congregation in Hudson.

“Rob is a fine young man who is genuinely a good person. … I’ve seen him actively participating with his wife Lauren and their daughters in the synagogue, and I know that he will be a fine role model for young Jewish people and young people throughout this country.”

Senderoff said he felt honored to have the job, especially in light of his Jewish heritage. “The fact that because of my religious background, you’re calling to talk to me, that’s an honor in itself … I (coach) to represent my university and my school and my family, but to know that there’s something greater to that as well, it’s certainly an honor and a privilege.”

Dambrot rebounds at Akron after hiatus

After Keith Dambrot, who was the head coach of Central Michigan University’s men’s basketball team at one time, used a racial epithet with his players in January 1993, Athletic Director Dave Keilitz opted not to bring Dambrot back for the 1993-1994 season.

Dambrot then lost a wrongful termination lawsuit he filed on April 19, 1993, and spent five years on hiatus before becoming head coach of St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron. Dambrot coached LeBron James in his last two seasons in high school, but the two first met at the Shaw Jewish Community Center in Akron when James was 13 years old.

“Basically, I opened up the Jewish center and let any kid in Akron pretty much come and work out every Sunday evening,” said Dambrot, who held basketball clinics at the Akron JCC during his coaching hiatus. “LeBron was a sponge. He was with a group of boys who had been coming for a year or so. He’s the type of guy that learned quickly, just wanted to be taught.

“Just a bright kid. Obviously, he had a pretty good basketball reputation, really wanted to be taught, really wanted to please you, really wanted to do the right thing on the court, become a better player.”

Dambrot left St. Vincent-St. Mary in 2001 for an assistant coaching spot at his alma mater, The University of Akron. Promoted in 2004, his tenure as head coach has all but washed away the tarnish of his Central Michigan past.

Dambrot, who is in his eighth season with the Zips, amassed a 173-81 record. He has won two Mid-American Conference titles in the last three seasons.

While he doesn’t wear his Judaism on his sleeve, he said religion plays a constant role in his life.

“I still try to get over to the Jewish (Community) Center as much as I can,” Dambrot said. “Last year, I read to little kids for national reading week. … I pretty much grew up there.”

Although his wife of 21 years, Donna, is Catholic, their daughter Alysse, 20, and son Robby, 17, followed in their father’s footsteps and attended the Akron JCC preschool.

Dambrot’s Jewish accomplishments extend internationally. He convinced Ben Braun, now the head coach at Rice University in Texas, to coach the men’s basketball team at the Maccabiah Games in 1989.

“I filled out the application for him, and he ended up being the head coach,” said Dambrot, who worked under Braun as an assistant coach at Eastern Michigan University from 1986-1989. “Coach didn’t want to do it, and I said, ‘Nah, you need to be doing this.’”

Time constraints prevented Dambrot from coaching the Maccabiah team. Despite his busy schedule, he remains active in the Jewish Coaches Association (JCA), where he’s been nominated for the Red Auerbach Coach of the Year Award the last two years.

Jason Belzer, executive director and founder of the JCA, said Dambrot is a valuable member of the 400-person association, which includes men and women in different games across different age levels of play.

“I’ve known Keith for a while now, and he’s accomplished a great deal,” Belzer said. “He’s on the cusp of taking a bigger and better job. … When we need something from him, particularly if it’s something going on in Ohio … having a bit of celebrity power certainly helps us when we need to get something done.”

Dambrot said he doesn’t let his celebrity status change his worldview.

“I view the world a little more pluralistic than most people,” he said. “I don’t view it as black, white, green, yellow, Jewish, Catholic. I just kind of view it as people.”

UH’s first Jewish football coach debuts with historic bowl victory

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:07:36 +0000

In a span of 12 days, Tony Levine became the first Jewish head football coach in the history of the University of Houston and the only Cougars coach to end a season undefeated.

A whirlwind finish to the best football season in UH history ended Jan. 2, with Levine being drenched with Gatorade after leading the Cougars to a 30-14 victory over Penn State in the TicketCity Bowl in Dallas.

“It was great,” Levine said after the game. “The whole team played great. To go through and coach that first one and be fortunate enough to come out on top was great. When I got hit with the Gatorade, it was the first time I felt like a head coach.

“I’m proud for our players, proud for our seniors and proud for the University of Houston. Really, I’m proud of the whole city of Houston and the state of Texas. I couldn’t be more blessed and more happy.”

Levine was named interim coach after Kevin Sumlin took the head coaching job at Texas A&M University last month. After a short coaching search, the University of Houston named Levine the full-time head coach on Dec. 21.

The St. Paul, Minn., native is the 13th head football coach at UH and takes over a team that finished the season 13-1, with its only loss coming in the Conference USA championship game.

This is the first head coaching job for Levine, 39, who had served as the special teams coordinator and inside receivers/tight ends coach the past four years under Sumlin.

“This is my dream job – the best job in the country,” Levine said at his introductory news conference. “Houston is a great place to live. It is our home, and we absolutely love living here. It’s a place that we are going to raise our kids and family.”

“Also, there are not many schools where you can walk out of your front door, get in your car and drive to recruit 25 players down the street and be home for dinner. You can do that at the University of Houston.”

UH’s first game under Levine was a memorable one. The Cougars set an all-time UH bowl record with 532 yards passing in crushing Big Ten powerhouse Penn State.

Part of Levine’s upcoming challenge, however, will be maintaining the high-powered offense as the team both loses long-time starting quarterback Case Keenan and moves to the Big East Conference in 2013.

Levine, who holds two master’s degrees, has coached at the high school, college and NFL levels during his 16-year coaching career. Before coming to UH, Levine coached with the Carolina Panthers in the NFL, as well as the University of Louisville, Louisiana Tech, Auburn and Texas State.

He was a walk-on player at the University of Minnesota, but became a three-time letterman at wide receiver for the Gophers and was twice named to the Academic All-Big Ten Team.

Levine then went on to play for the Minnesota Fighting Pike of the Arena Football League, before taking his first coaching job – Highland Park High School in Minnesota – in 1996.

Levine and his wife, Erin, have three sons, Benjamin, Asher and Eli, and a daughter, Willa.

Based on his attitude, it looks like Levine is in it for the long haul.

“The past two weeks have been a whirlwind,” Levine said at his introductory news conference. “I would like everyone in here to look around and take this experience in because it will be a long, long time before the University of Houston is having another press conference introducing a new head football coach.”

- Jewish Herald-Voice

Josh Pastner wins 2011 Red Auerbach Award

admin — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:17:36 +0000

MIAMI (FL) – Coach Josh Pastner of the University of Memphis was named the 2011 Red Auerbach Coach of the Year during a ceremony at the Final 4 in Houston, Texas. The Red Auerbach Award is given annually to the nation’s top Jewish college coach, as voted on by the members of the Jewish Coaches Association (JCA).

The award came after a successful second season for Coach Pastner and the Tigers. Memphis finished 25-10, with victories over ACC and SEC foes Miami and LSU, as well as a sweep of Conference USA regular season champion UAB.

The Tigers’ postseason performance was even more impressive, in which they captured the 2011 Conference USA Tournament Championship with a win over UTEP. Memphis received a #12 seed to the NCAA Tournament, where it fell to eventual Elite 8 participant Arizona 77-75. This marked Pastner’s first appearance in the NCAA Tournament as a head coach.

Josh Pastner received the award over four other finalists that included: Joe Pasternack (University of New Orleans), Gary Manchel (Mercyhurst University), Keith Dambrot (Akron University), and Andy Yosinoff (Emmanuel College).

2011 Red Auerbach College Coach of the Year Award Finalists

admin — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:00:57 +0000

MIAMI (FL) — The four finalists for the 2011 Red Auerbach College Coach of the Year Award were announced on Monday.

Gary Manchel- Mercyhurst College

In his eighth year at Mercyhurst College, Coach Gary Manchel guided the Mercyhurst Lakers to one of their best seasons in school history, accumulating a 20-7 record and reaching the PSAC quarterfinal berth. The team was ranked as high as #17 in the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Division II poll during the season.

Andy Yosinoff- Emmanuel College (Women)

In his 34th year, Coach Yosinoff guided the Lady Saints to a 20-8 record and their 16th NCAA Division III Tournament, where they fell to Mount Saint Mary College in the first round. The Lady Saints won finished undefeated in the GNAC regular season and went on to win the conference tournament title, beating Suffolk 83-67.

Josh Pastner- University of Memphis

In just his second season at the helm at Memphis, with one of the youngest rosters in the nation, Pastner guided the Tigers back to the NCAA Tournament, accumulating a 25-9 record and winning the Conference USA Tournament.

Joe Pasternack- University of New Orleans

After a tumultuous off-season which saw the Privateers begin the transition from Division I to Division II, limiting scholarships and resources in the process, Pasternack was able to lead New Orleans to a 16-6 record. He continues the rebuilding process for the Privateers basketball team and New Orleans athletics in general since Hurricane Katrina.

Keith Dambrot- University of Akron

In buzzer-beating fashion, Dambrot led Akron to yet another NCAA Tournament berth, capturing the Middle American Conference (MAC) tournament title and making their fourth post-seasonappearance in 5 years. The Zips accumulated a 23-12 record; including wins over fellow conference champions Bethune-Cookman (MEAC) and Arkansas-Little Rock (Sun Belt).

The winner will be presented with the award at the Final Four in Houston.

In 2009 the Jewish Coaches Association named its college coach of the year award after Red Auerbach, the coaching legend who won 938 games (a record at his retirement) and nine National Basketball Association (NBA) championships as a coach. As general manager and team president of the Celtics, he won an additional seven NBA titles, for a grand total of 16 in a span of 29 years, making him one of the most successful team officials ever in the history of professional sports.

2011 RED AUERBACH AWARD FINALISTS

Gary Manchel Mercyhurst College

Andy Yosinoff Emmanuel College (W)

Joe Pasternack University of New Orleans

Josh Pastner University of Memphis

Keith Dambrot University of Akron

Kosher Kagers Ready To Start on the Road To Houston

admin — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:21:46 +0000

By Brian ‘Shifty’ Schiff

March Madness is upon us and although this is not an overly strong year in Division 1 Jewish College Basketball there will be a decent amount of representation in the 2011 NCAA Tournament.

Players
Bryan Cohen, Junior — Bucknell
Cohen won an unprecedented 2nd straight Patriot Defensive Player of the Year Award, started all 33 games averaging 27.9 minutes, 7 points, 4 rebounds, and shot .429 percent from 3-point land

Jordan Weiner, Senior — UC Santa Barbara
Weiner started 18 of 31 games, averaged 21.2 minutes, 5.5 points and 1.7 rebounds

Nate Lubick, Freshman — Georgetown
Lubick Played in 31 games starting 12, averaging 19.4 minutes, 4.2 points and 3.5 rebounds

Steven Pearl, Senior — Tennessee
Pearl played in 33 games, starting 1, and averaged 11.4 minutes, 1.9 points and 1.5 rebounds

Josh Bartelstein, Sophomore — Michigan
Bartelstein played in 10 games averaging 1.8 minutes

Syracuse
Brandon Reese, Junior, Syracuse
Reese played in 9 games and averaged 1.2 points

Coaches:
Bruce Pearl, Head Coach - Tennessee
Finished 19-14 and is a #9 seed in the West Regional

Josh Pastner, Head Coach – Memphis
Finished 25-9 and is a #12 seed in the West Regional

Keith Dambrot, Head Coach – Akron
Finished 23-12 and is a #15 seed in the Southwest Regional

Bernie Fine, Associate Head Coach – Syracuse
Finished 26-7 and is a #3 seed in the East Regional

Larry Shyatt, Associate Head Coach – Florida
Finished 26-7 and is a #2 seed in the Southeast Regional

Scott Garson, Assistant Coach – UCLA
Finished 22-10 and is a #7 seed in the Southeast Regional

Jason Donnelly, Assistant Coach – Villanova
Finished 21-11 and is a #9 seed in the East Regional

Ross Condon, Assistant Coach; Adam Fisher, Director of Basketball Operations
Boston University
Finished 21-13 and is a #16 seed in the Southwest Regional

Scott Greenman, Assistant Director of Basketball Operations – Georgetown
Finished 21-10 and is a #6 seed in the Southwest Regional

Jordan Marks, Video Coordinator – Pittsburgh
Finished 27-5 and is a #1 seed in the Southeast Regional

Note: We apologize for any omissions.

Brian ‘Shifty’ Schiff is the long-time head coach of the Philadelphia Boys Maccabi Basketball Team as well as for the past 11 years head coach of the USA Junior Boys Maccabiah Basketball Teams. Currently he is the Director of all USA Basketball Teams for the 12th Pan American Maccabi Games which will take place in Sao Paulo, Brazil this upcoming December. For more information, contact ‘Shifty’ at bschiff@comcastsportsnet.com.

Jewish Coaches Association Annual Meeting

admin — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:07:32 +0000

The Jewish Coaches Association (JCA) will host its annual meeting at George R. Brown Convention Center (CC / 320) in Houston, Texas on Saturday, April 2 at 9:45am. Please join us as we celebrate the 2010-11 season over breakfast!

All are welcome!

George R. Brown Convention Center
1001 Avenida de las Americas
Houston, Texas 77010

Jewish Jordan (Tamir Goodman) Checks In

admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:41:41 +0000

via Yahoo! Sports

It’s been over a decade since a Sports Illustrated article turned him into an overnight celebrity and yet there’s still always someone that recognizes him in public at shopping malls, airports and the like.

“Are you the Jewish Jordan?” they ask.

Yes, Tamir Goodman tells them, that’s me. After all, Goodman’s still pretty easy to spot after all these years with his boyish face, fair skin and fiery red hair under a yarmulke.

“Whatever happened to you?”

That’s a much longer reply. The short answer is that Goodman is now living with his wife and three children in a Cleveland suburb, where he coaches basketball at a private Jewish school that goes up to eighth grade, runs camps and clinics, and serves as a motivational speaker.

The long answer — well, how much time do you have?

When the SI piece was published in February of 1999, his story was like something out of a movie.

Goodman was a junior at the tiny Talmudical Academy in Pikesville, Md., just north of Baltimore. That season, he averaged 38 points and committed to play at the nearby University of Maryland, one of the premier programs in the country. His fellow students had already started calling him Jesus (after Jesus Shuttlesworth in the movie “He Got Game”) and, you guessed it, Jewish Jordan.

It was an unusual sight: An Orthodox Jew who dominated while wearing a yarmulke and could be seen balling at the Dome, a legendary streetball court in East Baltimore.

ESPN and “60 Minutes” came calling and soon everyone wanted a piece of Goodman. At one point, things got so crazy he says he received 700 media requests in one week alone.

“I had no idea what was going on,” Goodman said. “I still probably don’t. It changed my life. It definitely changed my life. But ultimately I just always wanted to help other people through my story.”

The Hollywood script hit a snag the following September when Goodman announced he wouldn’t become a Terrapin after all. As an Orthodox Jew, he could not play during the Sabbath from sundown on Friday until three stars appear in the sky on Saturday night.

For Goodman, Saturday was and still is a day of rest, not basketball.

That was a slight problem for a basketball powerhouse in the ACC. On a roster of only about a dozen players, how could coach Gary Williams afford to have someone on scholarship that only played in around half the games?

So the two went their separate ways and Goodman ended up at Towson, a tiny program nearby with a coach who was willing to accommodate Goodman’s observance of the Sabbath. In fact, the team changed its schedule so it didn’t have any games or practices on Friday night or Saturday.

Goodman started 23 games as a freshman and averaged 6.0 PPG and 4.0 APG. While the numbers might not have been Jordan-esque, Goodman was overjoyed to be playing Division I basketball and staying true to his religious beliefs.

But Towson’s coach was fired after the 2000-01 season and replaced with someone Goodman didn’t share the same relationship with. Things came to a head when the new coach allegedly held a chair over Goodman’s head after a game that December and kicked a stool that hit his player in the leg. Goodman left the team and college basketball for good.

“After that happened, I was completely broken — spiritually and physically — I wanted nothing to do with basketball anymore,” Goodman said. “I was down, I was really, really down.”

Meanwhile, Gary Williams and the Terrapins were on their way to Maryland’s first basketball national title led by Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter. Instead of figuring out his ring size, Goodman was trying to find a place he could just play the game. He eventually regained his passion for basketball and started training day and night to play professionally since transferring would have required Goodman to sit out a year.

That summer at the age of just 20, he signed with Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv, a European powerhouse. It gave Goodman the incredible opportunity to play professionally and also live in the Jewish holy land.

But there were more setbacks overseas, as Goodman’s five seasons of playing pro ball between volunteering for the Israeli Army were marred by constant injuries. By the time he was finally done playing in 2009, his left knee was a mess and both hands were so badly damaged that he could barely catch a basketball.

And yet he continued to come back from the injuries until he physically could no longer play because he wanted to inspire people and represent Israel like he had always done. But in September of ‘09 Goodman brought his career to a close at the age of 27, just a decade removed from the SI article that made him famous.

“Both my hands and my knee are very, very weak right now and probably will be forever,” Goodman said.

While most prep phenoms would look back on a college and pro career like Goodman’s and see nothing but frustration and bad fortune, he takes the exact opposite mindset and believes everything that happened to him in basketball to be pre-ordained in order to teach him how to help others.

“All my injuries were my biggest blessings because the first part of my career, I only knew success. I had tremendous amounts of success… How can you inspire someone if you’ve never felt struggle before, if you’ve never felt adversity before?”

And don’t tell Goodman that a career averaging five points a game in college and riddled with injuries in the pros was a disappointment.

Said Goodman: “Society tends to, for basketball players, define success as, ‘Where do you play?’ or, ‘How many points do you score a game?’ For me, I learned that success is what good you can do for someone else through basketball.”

And that’s why today you now find Goodman in northeast Ohio using basketball as a tool to teach kids about life, sharing his story to inspire others and sounding more like the Jewish Tim Tebow than the Jewish Michael Jordan.

But there’s no use in now fighting the nickname that made him famous and will stick with him forever. So just how does he feel about it anyway?

“I never asked to put it on myself, but once it came I tried to make the best of it,” says Goodman, who grew up loving “His Airness” so much he used to sneak Jordan gear under his school uniform.

Noting the audaciousness of a nickname comparing him to the greatest basketball player of all time and his childhood hero, Goodman adds with a laugh, “Hopefully one day I’ll get a chance to meet Michael Jordan and apologize.”

National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame 2011 Inductees

admin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 18:00:49 +0000

via BallinEurope.com

America’s National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame has announced its inductees for 2011, well representing basketball with an NBA executive, a college notable and one of the most significant figures ever in Maccabi Tel Aviv history.

In the spirit of “last shall be first,” BallinEurope first congratulates Talbot “Tal” Brody. After his senior, All-America year with University of Illinois in 1964-65, Brody was chosen by the Baltimore Bullets as the no. 12 overall pick in the ‘65 NBA draft – but he forewent the opportunity to play ball in the big league, instead preferring to finish a graduate degree (imagine that happening today).

For the 1966-67 season, Brody began his career with Maccabi; the team immediately ascended to the European Champions Cup final four round with Brody starting at no. 2. Military commitments returned Brody to the ‘States for a couple of years and the SG played with the fifth-placing Team USA at the 1970 FIBA World Championship.

Returning to Israel for good for the 1970-71 season, Brody was soon made immortal in Israel sports history by guiding Tel Aviv to the European Champions Cup in 1977, part of the franchise’s first triple-crown season and the country’s first major sports championship. His post-game comments preserved a spot in history proper when he declared, in the face of certain geopolitical pressure from the Soviet Union throughout the competition with specific reference to Israel, the Cup victory to signify that “We are on the map, and we are staying on the map – not only in sports but in everything.”

In fact, here it is in what at least one source informs is “heavily American-accented Hebrew”:

Then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin personally thanked Brody for the championship and the sound bite, which has become part of Israeli discourse (not to mention political rhetoric and advertising). Brody would become the first athlete ever to be awarded the Israel Prize in 1979 and he retired from basketball in 1980, having guided Maccabi to the Ligat HaAl title every season in which he played. (Some things never change, eh?) He is today a member of the Israeli Sports Hall of Fame.

Since then, Brody has remained on the international basketball scene. In his early days out of playing, he acted as assistant coach and TV color commentator; today he is involved with a number of charities including Migdahl Ohr, for which Brody helped organize the recent NBA preseason games pitting Maccabi against the New York Knicks.

Seven others will join Brody in the National Jewish Sports Hall’s class of 2011, but honors to basketball’s two other representatives will be posthumous.

The Hall has called for Abe Pollin, longtime owner of the Baltimore/Washington Bullets/Wizards over 45 years taking him through a swathe of basketball history running from Earl “The Pearl” Monroe and Wes Unseld through to Michael Jordan – plus one NBA championship, in 1977-78.

Alan Seiden is known as the All-American who led the St. John’s Redmen to win the NIT championship in 1959, back when that tournament was a bit more high-prestige than the competition that languishes in the shadows of March Madness. Even more notable might be Peter Vecsey’s claim about Seiden, namely that he invented a certain expression now common in hoops parlance.

Claimed Vecsey in the New York Post in 2004, “On each and every ‘ground’ raid to the basket, Seidman would infuriate opponents by shouting ‘And One!’ regardless of whether he was actually fouled. Ask anybody who ever played against him … it was his sardonic signature saying.”

Some 48 inductees in the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame are from the basketball world, including Red Auerbach, Larry Brown, Red Holzman, Dolph Schayes, and original Harlem Globetrotters owner/general manager Abe Saperstein. Also Tony Kornheiser.

Induction ceremonies into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame will take place on March 27.

Concussion Clinic

admin — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:08:43 +0000

January 30, 2011 1:00 PM

The National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, in conjunction with the Sports Legacy Institute, will offer a Concussion Clinic at the Suffolk Y JCC on January 30, 2011.

Sports Legacy Institute (SPI), a non-profit organization is proud to offer a SLI Concussion Clinic, a cutting edge multimedia educational presentation vital for everyone involved in sports, including coaches, athletes and parents.

New research from the Center of the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) is showing that concussions and brain trauma are a growing public health crisis, and many former athletes are dying young with extensive brain damage caused by playing sports as a child, in high school and in college.

The SLI Concussion Clinic will teach you what the problem is and how to protect your athletes and yourself (student athletes) using dramatic stories, humor and the latest research.

The SLI Concussion Clinic was developed by Dr. Robert Cantu, Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery at BUSM and Christopher Nowinski, Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at BUSM, former All-Ivy Harvard football player and author of ‘Head Games: Football’s Concussions Crisis’.

The program will include:
Primary Speaker: SLI President and former WWE wrestler Chris Nowinski
Based on availability: Dr. Robert Cantu, former NFL star Ted Johnson and others
There will be a PowerPoint presentation with multiple videos.

JCA Members $25 per person, Non-Members $40 per person, Students $10 per person

If you have any questions, please contact Alan Freedman at 631-462-9800 ext. 119, or Scott Zlochower at ext. 126.

13th European Maccabi Games - Basketball Coaches and Players Wanted!

admin — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:27:31 +0000

The 13^th European Maccabi Games (http://www.emg2011.eu/home) will be held form July 5-13, 2011 in Vienna, Austria. The Maccabi Games are the biggest Jewish sports events and are organized in a similar way to the Olympic Games. The Games are one of the five biggest international sporting events worldwide.

The United States delegation, Co-Chaired by Jacqui Pearl, is currently seeking a Head and Assistant coach, as well as 12 players (born between 1995 and 1997) for the Junior Boys Basketball team.

Those interested will need to go to www.maccabiusa.com and fill out a formal application.

Please contact Jacqui at jacqui.pearl@gmail.com with any questions.