Photo by Craig Terkowitz

Keeping It Smooth
For The Detroiters

The coaches worked around the
clock.

I

hey love kids. They love
sports. And most of
them have been doing
this a long time.
It's what makes the De-
- troit delegation so organized
each year at the Maccabi
Youth Games.
: i> As Detroiters learned in
1990, when our city hosted
the massive North Ameri-
can games, it takes plenty of
organization to host thou-
sands of teen-age athletes,
feed them, entertain them,
and put on first-class ath-
letic competitions.
The task gets only slight-
ly easier when you lead your
team to another city.
Alan Horowitz lost his
I
3 voice before he even arrived
in Baltimore. And he arrived
late. With his wife briefly in
the hospital, Horowitz did
not leave with the Detroit
team by bus on Saturday
night. He flew into Balti-
' more on Monday.
Racquetball coach Stuart
Gottesman had a business
deal that took him out of
town. Trainer Mike Kober-
nick and other official De-
o troit chaperones took over to
make pure the racquetball
team was where it was sup-
posed to be.
Detroit's 1990 games
chairman, housing co-chair
and games coordinator —
Jay, Barbara and daughter
Beth Robinson — were on
hand as chaperones, along
with Candy -Bosquet and Es-

ther Tuchklaper.
They stepped in during
the daily disputes over
rules, busing, scheduling
and feeding at the athletic
venues, they voiced their
concerns at the 7 a.m. dele-
gation heads' meetings. And
they planned, planned,
planned to insure that
everything went smoothly
for Detroit's 166 teen ath-
letes.
The Detroiters began
planning the team's Sunday
departure from Baltimore at
their daily breakfast gath-
ering on Wednesday. Orga-
nizing the buses, locating
them at the closing cere-
monies so the Detroit ath-
letes would not be caught in
a crush of luggage and ve-
hicles, arranging for coach-
es' transportation from their
downtown hotel, were
thought out well in advance.
Boys basketball coach
Howard Golding. His daugh-
ter Jamie was one of the
seven Detroit girls players.
He crossed the line between
parent and coach, much to
the appreciation of the
crowd, when he blistered the
Australian girls coach for
pressing the Detroit girls
throughout the first half.
Down by more than 30
points, the Aussie lifted the
press after Golding's half-
time harangue, but had his
girls shoot 3-pointers in-
stead. The Australian team
won by more than 70 points,

Ann Arbor, Windsor
Teams Make A Mark

Small and proud delegations find
success.

nn Arbor and Windsor
delegations to the Mac-
cabi Games came home
with their share of medals.
Tuesday seemed to be
Windsor day at Catonsville
Community College as the
13 Windsor track and field
athletes won 11 medals.
Winning for Windsor
were: David Frenkel, 15-16
long jump, bronze, and high
jump, bronze; girls 15-16
high jump, Rachel Arbour,
silver, and Mandi Polsky,
bronze; shot put, 13-14 girls,
Marni Lyons, bronze; 15-16
girls, Mandi Polsky, gold;
15-16 boys, Sean Cormican,
silver.
Three Windsor 4x100 re-
lay teams earned bronze
medals: 13-14, Aaron
Lazarus, Eli Udell, Aaron
Taub and Jeff Shulman; 15-
16, Sean Cormican, Jeff
Shulman, Aaron Lazarus,
David Frenkel; 15-16 coed,
Nadine Diner, Sean Cormi-
can, Mandi Polsky, David
Frenkel.
Windsor's Dorey Livneh
teamed with Pittsburgh's

A

Oren Lifshitz to win a silver
medal in table tennis dou-
bles.
Ann Arbor's greatest glo-
ry last week was Rebecca
Wark's gold medal in the 13-
14 800 meter run. Her time
was 2:39.7.
But Ann Arbor had some
vindication in the boys
tournament, winning its
first Maccabi basketball
game by defeating Rich-
mond, 39-38. Ann Arbor
nearly won a game earlier
in the tournament, losing to
Syracuse, 50-49. Jersey
Shore defeated the Ann Ar-
bor boys team 56-39.
The Ann Arbor girls bas-
ketball team, like Detroit,
played without any high
school players and lost all
three of its games.
Tennis player Alex Kotly-
er did not medal, but he
sure made a friend. Kotlyer
emigrated two years ago
from the Soviet Union and
served as a translator for
the Commonwealth of Inde-
pendent States athletes at
the Maccabi Games.
He became
very close
with a female
table tennis
player from
the CIS team.
But there
were no de-
fections. The
young lady is
on her way
back home.

❑

Detroiters were
a proud
delegation.

Photo by Bruce Savadow

ii

Lani Buch relaxes on the pool deck.

but the coach later apolo-
gized to Golding.
The coaches and chaper-
ones work with the athletes
and traveled to Baltimore on
the athletes' buses at their
own expense. Volleyball
coach Kenny Berlin dipped
into his own pocket for ex-
tra uniforms and lunches for
his players. But the 11-hour
bus trip to Baltimore was a
little more than veteran
swim coach Herb Bernstein
wanted.
When he heard that four
sites were chosen for next
year's regional games —
Pittsburgh, St. Louis,
Boston and Sarasota —
Bernstein began lobbying
for the shortest bus ride.
Tennis coach Linda Okun
switched from the bus to an
airplane to Baltimore at the
last minute. She has been
trying to pass a kidney stone
and didn't think she could
handle the bus trip.
Jill and Tony Spokojny
brought their children,
Leah, 6, and Danny, 10, to
Baltimore. At last year's re-
gional games in Cleveland,
Danny became fast friends
with Louis Skeegan, 11, son
of boys volleyball coach Sam
Skeegan. They rode the
Maccabi buses to the ath-
letic sites in Cleveland and
Danny, with permission,
competed as a guest runner
in the 2 mile event in track.
He finished third — at the
age of 9. ❑

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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