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Cover Story

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Detroit teams

will head

in four directions

for the JCC Maccabi

Games, with some

competitors having

closer direction

ALAN HITSKY

Associate Editor

than others.

8/2
2002

92

IV

hen Laura Langberg gets
off the bus on Sunday,
Aug. 11, in Baltimore for
the JCC Maccabi
Games, her mother won't be far
behind.
That's because 14-year-old Laura and
mother, Lois, are both important mem-
bers of the Detroit Maccabi Club's
dance team. Laura is a first-year athlete
on the eight-member, co-ed dance
team and her mother is the first-year
coach.
"I called Maccabi last year for my
daughter to be on the team," Lois said.
"They told me there was not really a
dance team. So, I gave them my name
and told them I've been teaching dance

for many years, and would
love to be the coach for next
year if they needed one.
Well, they jumped at the
offer."
Daughter Laura joins an
exclusive group of teens at
this year's Maccabi Games. Twelve
Detroit athletes are being coached by
their parents. Evan Pomish, on
Detroit's age 13-14 in-line hockey
team, is in double trouble: Brother
Brandon, a Maccabi veteran, is head
coach, and father, Michael, is an assis-
tant coach. Three other assistant coach-
es, Michael Friedman, Walter Schram
and Sheldon Yellen, have sons on the
team: Zack Friedman, Brandon
Schram and Brandon Yellen.
The total of Detroit athletes being
coached by family approaches 8 per-

cent of Detroit's 168 Maccabi partici-
pants. Detroit has eight teams going to
Baltimore Aug. 11-16, nine teams
competing in Montreal Aug. 18-23,
and a girls volleyball team playing in
Springfield, Mass., Aug. 18-23.
Other Detroit family pairs: Coach
Alan Borsen and son Brandon in base-
ball; Steve and Bradley Friedman, 15-
16 in-line hockey, and Steve's brother,
Michael, and Michael's son, Zack, in
13-14 in-line hockey; Genise and Jenna
Keiner, softball; Rob and Evan Sachs,
golf; Ron and Stefani Silberstein, soft-
ball; Steve and Mitch Weiss, 13-14 bas-