SPORTS

A Special Hall

Sponsoring last year's
Special Games has boosted
the morale of the Michigan Jewish
Sports Hall of Fame. leaders

MIKE ROSENBAUM

Sports Writer

L

ast August, the Michigan
Jewish Sports Hall of Fame,
along with the Jewish Com-
munity Center, organized
the first Special Games for handi-
capped Jewish children and adults.
As much as the event helped the par-
ticipants, it may have helped the hall
even more. The games are playing a
key role in the hall's continued
growth following the death of founder
Al Foon.
When the hall was born in 1985,
it was basically a one-man show. Foon
certainly had help, and the hall
featured four illustrious inductees
that year. But it was Foon who started
the hall and kept the organization
running.
Foon died in 1987, giving the
young hall its first crisis. Hall
treasurer and former executive direc-
tor Jim Grossman gives his perspec-
tive on how the hall made up for the
loss. "Al Foon was our most tireless
worker. He was clearly the organiza-
tion's greatest zealot. Since his death
we have all had to band together to
delegate a lot more of the respon-
sibilities. Our committee system is
working much better now that it has
in the past . . . In the past, what
someone didn't do Al Foon did."
New executive director Mark Un-
ger, sports director of WJZZ-FM, was
not directly involved with the Hall
before this year.

After Foon died, says Unger, "the
board of directors had something on
their hands and they had no idea
what to do with it. What they did was
keep the (induction) dinner going.
And then they came up with this idea
of doing something philanthropic
with the money;' raised at the dinner.
That something turned out to be the
Special Games. The Games were so
successful that they will continue,
and may be expanded, this year. The
Games may also be the catalyst which
pushes the Hall of Fame organization
toward further growth.
"None of them anticipated how
giving to the Special Games would
make them feel;' explains Unger.
"Here you had well-to-do Jewish
businessmen who worked for years
. . . to make a buck and all of the sud-
den they were giving and actually
they were at the event where these
handicapped kids were participating.
And that giving, not just money but
their time, made them feel so good. I
think it shocked 'em. I think they
never expected to feel that. And when
that happened, all of the sudden they
got a lot more dedicated to the Jewish
Sports Hall of Fame."
Grossman added that, with the
Special Games, the Hall of Fame
organization had a new direction.
"Our experience with the develop-
mentally disabled group . . . within
the Jewish community that we have
been able to be involved with, has
made all of us feel that what we're
doing is worthwhile . . . It gave us a

Seymour Brode, Bill Jacobs, Mickey Fishman, Bob Steinberg, Al Foon,
Sheldon and Myron Milgrom at a 1986 hall ceremony.

real sense of having a purpose."
Grossman emphasized that the
hall did not put the games together
alone. "I can't say enough good things
about the staff at the Center and
what they've done with this," he said.
Clearly though, the hall has benefit-
ted most during a key point in its ex-
istence. Now, its future not only looks
secure, but brighter than ever.
The hall's most recent action was
the choice of three new inductees,
who will be announced at a general
meeting on April 10 at 11 a.m. at
the Maple/Drake Jewish Community
Center. The meeting is open to the
public. Regardless of who is selected,
the Hall is not likely to face the kind
of controversy the Michigan Hall of
Fame recently received when it an-
nounced the induction of golfer Glenn
Johnson. It was later revealed that
the Michigan Hall, led by commis-
sioner Nick Kerbawy, had bypassed
two athletes who received more votes
in the balloting by sports writers and
broadcasters throughout the state,
because Johnson lives in Michigan
and would attract more people to the

induction dinner.
Grossman sympathized with Ker-
bawy, but said the Jewish Hall would
not select a candidate simply with
their dinner attendance in mind,
although, he added, the dinner is any
Hall of Fame's lifeblood.
"Make no mistake," says
Grossman, "the dinner is important
. . . If Nick Kerbawy doesn't have a
successful dinner he doesn't have a
Hall of Fame. If we don't have a suc-
cessful dinner we don't have a Hall of
Fame. And there are events in the
community that used to be great
events, that are nothing events now,
or non-events, because the dinner
started to go and fade."
Unger agrees. "Take a guy like
(University of Michigan Athletic
Director) Don Canham, who's in three
or four different halls of fame. He
doesn't get in because of how many
votes he got. He's in because
somewhere, somebody says 'We want
this guy in.'
"I don't have any worries about
that with the Jewish Sports Hall of
Fame, because from the beginning we

It's All Downhill For Ethan Harris

MIKE ROSENBAUM

Sports Writer

It still looked like winter outside,
but for Ethan Harris, the winter
season ended earlier this month when
he completed his ski-racing season.

Ethan Harris

80

FRInAY MARCH 18 NPR

Harris, 16, is a junior at Milford
Lakeland High School. He won the
Southeast Michigan Ski League sla-
lom regional at Alpine Valley last
month and finished third in the
giant slalom. He went on to place
eighth and 12th, respectively, in
the two events at the state region-
als. On March 1, he finished 22nd

in the slalom at the state meet in
Marquette.
Harris was eighth in slalom and
15 in giant slalom at the Central U.S.
Ski Association (USSA) regional at
Crystal Mountain, March 5 and 6.
Harris began skiing at age four
with his father, Charles. "I skied bet-
ween his legs," Ethan recalled. He
began competing at age 11. He says
he enjoys "the competition. It's good
competition and it's a sport that you
can really go fast in."
Harris enjoys speed on a variety
of surfaces. He races sail boats on
Lake St. Clair in the summer, and
had good success in bicycle racing.

Harris won state U.S. Cycling Federa-
tion championships in 1983 and 1984.
He placed fifth in the national corn-
petition in 1983, a 10-day, 120-mile
event in Colorado.
Harris will attend a ski-racing
camp in Oregon in June. He will do
a variety of dryland training before
his final high school ski season. His
goal? "To win states, hopefully . . . I'd
like to take both (slalom and giant
slalom). It's possible."
Beyond that, "I'd like to race in
college. If I'm good enough in the
USSA I can probably get a scholar-
ship for college and then race on a ski
team."

