SPORTS

Scull
Sessions

He may be the president
of his own business,
but Joel Jacob makes
sure he has time for his
rowing hobby

MIKE ROSENBAUM

Sports Writer

E

stablished in 1885, the
M. Jacob and Sons con-
tainer company may be
the oldest, Jewish-owned
business in • Metro
Detroit. Now Joel Jacob, the 29-year-
old founder and president of the com-
pany's Sprayco division, could make.
some history himself in sports. Jacob
hopes to row his way into the 1989 .
Maccabiah Games in Israel.
"I hope to be over there," he says,
"if not rowing then helping out and
keeping in contact with the Israeli
rowers!" His company will be a spon-
sor of the U.S. sculling team, - as it was
at the last Maccabiah in 1985.
Even if Jacob does not earn a spot
on the U.S. team in a single, double
or four-man crew next year, his row-
ing hobby and long-time participation
in sports continue to help him in life.
In high school, Jacob swam for the
Southfield-Lathrup varsity. At
Michigan State University he looked
for a competitive sport which was less

.

"It requires quite a bit of
discipline just to get up and going;'
says Jacob. "But that has helped me
in business and a lot of things, this
discipline and routine . . . You're up
and on the water before the sun rises.
You're finishing up rowing when the
sun is just starting to come up!'
His single shell is 26 feet long but
only 12 inches wide and weighs just
26 pounds. "It's like you're sitting on
a two-by-four;' he explains. "The on-
ly thing that's keeping you up is your
movement and your two oars that are
in the water. If you let go of one of the
oars you would flip over and fall in the
water. And you can't get back in the
boat. So it's very difficult to master
the technique. It's not something
everybody can just jump in" and do.
"Because there's a tremendous
amount of balance and coordination
and timing that's involved with the
sport . . . The seat is on a slide and
you have to make sure you don't come
up too fast on the slide because that'll
slow down the movement of the boat!'
Jacob says that those interested in
sculling can begin with a recreational

,

time-consuming than swimming. He
selected rowing. He learned the
technique and participated on the
Spartans' eight-man crew.
Jacob frequently must explain to
people exactly what sculling is. "Most
people, I tell them I'm an oarsman
and they kinda have a blank stare on
their face. And I always say, well, you

recall the Olympics on televsion, the
long boats with the eight guys row-
ing? And they say, 'Oh yes.' "
After college Jacob joined the
family business, but kept up his row-
ing by purchasing a one-man boat,
called a shell. He takes his shell onto
nearby Cass Lake at 5:15 a.m. almost
every morning that he is in town.

Grossfeld Returns For Third Olympics

HARLAN C. ABBEY

Special to the Jewish News

S

ince this fall's Olympic Games
in Seoul, South Korea, will be
Abie Grossfeld's third as head
coach of the American men's gym-
nastics team, one would imagine that
countless star gymnasts would enroll
at Southern Connecticut State
University, in New Haven, where he
coaches.
"No matter what the coach's
reputation," he said, "the top athletes
go where the money — or scholarship
— is. Our school gives no athletic
scholarships, and an athletic scholar-
ship is a status symbol, so 98 percent Abie Grossfeld: Gymnastics coach in Seoul.
of those offered one take it."
Still, working with "third or NCAA Division I national meets,
fourth round draft choices" he has against scholarship granting
won over 85 percent of dual meets and institutions.
has finished as high as third in
As for Seoul, he said "We were

UGUST 5 1988

ninth in the World Championships
last October — our two best men were
injured — so I would be happy for us
to finish in the top half-dozen. But if
we won the gold medal in 1984 when
I didn't expect it . . ."
In addition to his three Olympic
head-coaching stints, Grossfeld — a
former NCAA, Big Ten and two-time
Olympian himself — also has coach-
ed five World Championship teams,
two Pan-American Games teams and
at the 1986 Goodwill Games in
Moscow.
In addition to the team gold
medal in 1984, Grossfeld's interna-
tional highlights included the 1976
Games in Montreal, when Peter Kor-
mann, one of his Central Connecticut
athletes, won a bronze, the first Olym-
pic medal won by an American male
gymnast in 44 years. Kormann now
coaches at the Naval Academy.

Grossfeld described himself as
"the greatest gold-medal winner in
Maccabiah Games history," (16) ad-
ding that one year Israel presented
him with golds for both his com-
pulsory and individual gymnastic
routines, when usually medals are
given for the combined score.
He has coached the U.S. Mac-
cabiah gymnastics teams three times.
Asked about the possibility of
Jewish gymnastics competitors in
Seoul, he noted that Brian Ginsburg
of UCLA's national champions was on
the Pan-Am Games team but has
since suffered from injuries. Noel
Rifkin, the individual champion of
the last Maccabiah, is a long-shot to
make the team.
"Israel has good coaches and a
good gym at Wingate University," he
continued, "but every good Israeli
gymnast can't get to Wingate, and the