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