88 Friday, August 24, 1984
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
OPS & H
West Bloomfield's Rich Goldberg
hopes for basketball stardom at
Creighton University this winter. But
if that doesn't work out, there's
always baseball .
BY STEVE RAPHAEL
Special to The Jewish News
Three. years ago, in a tense,
tight, Little League state cham-
pionship game that was headed for
extra innings, Rich Goldberg was the
pitcher Westland hitters couldn't
wait to face.. Even though the West
Bloomfield teenager had already be-
aten them three times that summer,
this game, they felt, would be differ-
ent-
It wasn't. Goldberg entered the
contest in the seventh inning and
pitched shutout baseball through the
14th. After his West Bloomfield team
scored the go-ahead run in the top of
the 15th inning,.Goldberg sealed the
championship by striking out the
side on nine pitches, all curve balls.
That was just one of many great
moments in the athletic career of
Goldberg, now 18. This past season,
the senior basketball and baseball
star chalked , up these accom-
plishments at Detroit Country Day
School:
• Class C all-state in basketball
as a guard, averaging 16 points and ,
nine assists per game.
• An all-state basehall third
baseman, hitting .485 with seven
home runs and 20 RBIs.
• Jewish all-American, in bas-
,ketball, the first private school
player ever to make the national
-team.
• Recipient of a four-year bas-
ketball scholarship to Creighton
University in Omaha..
Just for good measure, Goldberg,,
who stands a tad under 6'3" and
weighs 180 pounds, tosses in another
achievement-He hit two home runs
against Cranbrook this past spring to
lead Country Day to its first-ever win
over the Bloomfield Hills school.
Goldberg has a good shot at mak-
ing the U.S. basketball team for the
1985 Maccabiah Games in 'met, an
honor that would combine the things
most important in his life.
Detroit Country Day's all-state guard, Rich Goldberg, moves the ball up court in a game
last year against St. Martin De Porres.
posedly is a notch or two below the
best. Major college coaches seldom
recruit players out of small schools.
"All the big time coaches went to
his games," says Fred Goldberg,
Rich's father and athletic director at
A high school baseball standina, in -
Southfield High School. "These
addition to basketball star, Goldberg
coaches know if , a player has it or not,
demonstrates his prowess at the plate.
regardless of who he's playing
'It would give me the chance to
against. The bottom line is that Rich .
represent my country doing the thing
got a scholarship to a Division I
school."
I 'like best, while visiting Israel, a
country that means a lot to me emo-
"The competition at Country
tionally.. '
Day wasn't strong day in and day
•out," Goldberg admits, "but the
"Being Jewish is one of the most
coaching was fantastic. I could have
meaningful things in my life. To see
been a better Player if I played at a '
the sites and meet the people of Israel
would be the ultimate experience," ' bigger School against more blacks.
says Goldberg, a member of Temple . But I wouldn't have gotten the educa-
tion I got at Country Day."
Beth El.
Playing two sports has provided
Making the Maccabiah team
Goldberg with an additional facet to
means a lot of hard work, but that's
his education, one not available to
what it took for him to win his co-
many youngsters: He moves with
veted basketball scholarship to
equal aplomb in two different worlds,
Creighton. He had to convince the
that of the black, urban basketball
skeptics that he could play major col-
player and white, suburban baseball
lege basketball coming from a Class
player. They are two worlds, he says,
C high school.
High school designation is de- • that are totally different from one
another, andtwo worlds which give
termined by student population. The
him unusual insight into different
smaller that,population, the reason-
aspects of American life.
ing goes, the fewer outstanding
Choosing Creighton wasn't easy
athletes there area When Class C
for Goldberg. He wanted to stay close
schools collide, the competition sup-
to home, but Michigan and Michigan
State were loaded 'with guards. He
was led to Omaha, 700 miles from his
Nest Bloomfield home, by Moses -- -
Calvin Moses, an assistant coach.
HEBREW UNION COLLEGE
He was also impressed by head
LIBRARY, C
coach Willis Reed, a former NBA cen-
WAL TER ROTHMAN, LIBRARIAN
ter who had led the New York Knicks
•
CINCINNATI, OHIO 45220
to the NBA title in the early 1970s.
Reed has been busy the past few .
•
•
.......
•
years grabbing off some of the na-
tion's finest high school players, in-
eluding seven foot sophomore center
Benoit' Benjamin. Goldberg will play ,
for a team loaded with talent' and ex-
pected to do well nationally this year.
He also expects to play second string
behind a three-year starter.
Another plus in Creighton's
favor was its strong academic pro-
gram. Holder of a 3.1 grade point av-
erage in high school, Goldberg plans
to major in either pre-law or busi-
ness.
The, distance from home will,
pose some problems for the
Goldbergs, a close family that revels
in sharing the athletic accom-
plishments of one another. Rich's
mother, Fran, is an outstanding ten-
nis player and golfer, 15-year-old
Elizabeth stars in tennis and softball
at Andover High School, while Fred
was.a basketball standout at Eastern
Michigan University.
"We'll be able to see Rich play at
least 12 times this year," Fred
'Goldberg says. "We'll be on vacation
in Hawaii .during the Christmas
!reek when Creighton is there to
play three games. When Creighton is
playing in Chicago, Indiana or Ohio,
we'll jump in the car and go."
.
It was Fran, not Fred, who intro-
duced Rich to sports when she took ,
her 4-year-old son to the basement to
show him hoW to swing a baseball
bat. The Jewish community's famous
jock maven, Sam Taub, encouraged
Fred to turn the right-handed boy
into a left-handed hitter, a rare and
desired commodity in pro baseball:
At about that same time, the