SPORTS

Marc Goldman and Matt Liss
struggle through a
wrestling drill.

That's
definitely
the case
with these
young
wrestlers,
upon
whose
shoulders
the Detroit
Maccabi
Club is
pinning its
hopes.

RICHARD PEARL

Staff Writer

T

R.lk about dedication!

Les Swartz says he's
passed up the Pistons
at the Palace for 21 young
wrestlers at West Bloomfield
High School.
"I had a ticket for the NBA
playoffs tonight," says the
Canton Township dentist as
he stands in the school
wrestling room. But he isn't
complaining because the
young grapplers are his son
Eric and the 20 13-to-16-
year-olds Eric is molding
into the Detroit Maccabi
Club wrestling team.
That team will represent
Detroit when a world of
young Jewish teens comes
calling in August for the
biennial Jewish Community
Centers-North American
Maccabi Youth Games,
which the metro area will
host for the second time in
six years.
The fact this is the chance
of a lifetime — to represent
the hometown before 2,200
of their peers from across the
United States and around
the world — apparently
hasn't escaped the Swartzes'
young charges.
The big turnout for wrestl-
ing is a surprise to both Jay
Robinson, Games general
chairman, and Alan
Horowitz, Detroit team
sports coordinator. "Twenty-

two kids — that's amazing!"
they said after the tryouts.
They and the Swartzes re-
member the last Youth
Games, in Chicago in 1988,
when Detroit had only a two-
man wrestling delegation —
a youngster from Midland
and Eric Swartz. Swartz
brought back a bronze medal
and the pair won the team
silver medal.
Eric, who at 17 is too old
for the Maccabi, chose to
turn his efforts to coaching
the younger athletes, to see
if he can help them capture
some glory for the host city
at the Aug. 19-26 Games.
Swartz, a junior at West
Bloomfield High School who
placed third in March in the
Metro Suburban Conference

Brad Wasserman learns a move
from coach Eric Swartz.

at 189 pounds, may be the
youngest head coach in the
Games this year.
And Les Swartz, who
wrestled both at
Clarenceville High School
and Wayne State Univer-
sity, is helping out with the
organizational details
—making sure practice in-
formation is disseminated
and registration fees are col-
lected — and helping guide
the team, which includes his
younger son, Michael, 13.
The wrestling is freestyle,
a form used in the Olympics.
Each match starts with both
wrestlers standing. Each
tries to take the other to the
mat for a pin.
During this particular
practice, the West Bloom-
field mat room has a typical
wrestling workout at-
mosphere: a boom-box is
playing rock with a driving
rhythm while the young
grapplers grunt and strain
on the mat. In this exercise,
called "King of the Mat,"
they're having a "go" at
their powerfully-built young
coach: he takes on each of
them, from the smallest up,
in succession until one
defeats him.
This night, that doesn't
happen very quickly.
"A lot of them are not in
very decent condition," says
the wiry, bearded assistant
coach and father. Earlier,
the boys are put through a

Avi Moskovitz listens to assistant
coach Les Swartz.

20-minute, aerobic condi-
tioning drill, but with prac-
tices being held only once
every two weeks until the
summer, it's going to be up
to the boys to work them-
selves into shape, he says.
"Wrestling is a one-on-one
sport — just you and the
other guy," says Eric
Swartz, the head coach. "If
you do good, you're doing
good for yourself."
"If you do what you're
supposed to do" regarding
workouts and watching
what you eat, says Les
Swartz, "you will get better.
The sport proves hard work
pays off."
Among those on the team
is Avi Moskovitz of Beverly

Hills, whose father and
mother, Arie and Ella, came
to the United States from
Israel about 20 years ago.
Avi got his first taste of
Maccabi in 1984, the second
Youth Games, when the
Moskovitzes housed the
Israeli team's coaches. "We
made a lot of friends then,"
says Arie Moskovitz, who is
on hand to watch his sons
practice this night.
Avi, 16, has completed
only his first year of wrestl-
ing. But the Birmingham
Groves High School
grappler, who wrestled at
145 and 152 pounds, is proud
of the two victories he notch-
ed in the Oakland County
meet.
The Maccabia is "a chance
to represent the Jewish
community," says his father.
Avi is serious about wrestl.
ing, he adds.
The teenager who is prob-
ably coming the longest
distance to Detroit Maccabi
practices is Steve Robinson,
a tall sophomore from East
Detroit High School who fin-
ished 12th in the Michigan
State Class A wrestling
tournament in his first year.
Robinson says he and his
family are very involved
with Congregation Beth
Tephilath Moses in Mount
Clemens, which is where his
grandmother saw a letter
announcing the Maccabi
wrestling tryouts. Robinson,

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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