Cover Story
The Factor
Looking for that "little extra," Maccabi teens prepare
for August competition.
ALAN HITSKY
Associate Editor
4,0
8/ 1
2003
86
hen nearly 150 local athletes and 30
adult coaches and delegation heads
leave Detroit for Houston, Palisades,
N.J., and St. Louis this month, ath-
letics will be just one part of the week of min-
gling, socializing and getting away one more time
before school starts.
Athletics is just one part, but an important part
— the glue that draws thousands of Jewish teens
to the JCC Maccabi Games each August to mix,
mingle and discover a larger Jewish world.
At Detroit Maccabi's weekly volleyball practices
at the Jewish Community Center in West
Bloomfield, the lady athletes joke and tease each
other like ... well, like teenagers. But when the
whistle blows and it's time to practice, do a drill
at the net or listen to the coaches, these 18 ath-
letes are all business.
Manicured fingernails? Maybe, but very, very
short. Long hair? Fine, but pulled into a ponytail.
And as a group, they are tall for their age, thin
and quick.
Sixteen of the 18 Detroit volleyball players are
on their high school varsity or junior varsity
teams. Most play other sports as well. But volley-
ball is special.
Lisa Goode, 16, is playing Maccabi volleyball
for the fourth time. The Bloomfield Hills
Andover student is one of the two girls on the
Maccabi team who does not play volleyball in
high school.
"I snow ski," she said, and the two seasons over-
lap in high school.
Goode loves skiing and made it to the high
school state championships in slalom last year.
"But Maccabi is how I get to play volleyball."
Two other Andover students — Lauren Elkus
and Hannah Miller — also will be playing in their
fourth JCC Maccabi Youth Games this month.
Andover team. "Maccabi is more fun and more
training" compared to high school volleyball,"
Miller said, "and it's less stress."
Elkus, an Andover varsity player, agreed. "In
high school, you play twice a week. So you work
[in practice] on what you see [in games]. With
Maccabi, we practice more and scrimmage more
and work on what we think we'll see."
Aiming High
Coach Bertin believes his two squads will
see a lot. The less experienced, younger
team will play in Houston Aug. 10-15. The
older girls will play in New Jersey Aug. 17-
22. Bertin will be at both games.
From past experience, he expects the host
teams — Palisades and Houston — to be
very strong. But he also believes that his 18
players are the deepest squad he has had in
his 14 years of Maccabi coaching.
"Our older girls are very skilled," he said.
"I'll be very surprised if they don't medal."
And, with a little more practice time after
everyone returned from camp, Bertin believes
the same is true for his younger team.
Bertin began coaching Maccabi volleyball
Assistant volleyball coach Gennifer Roth follows the action.
in 1990, when the games returned to Detroit
for the second time and the local Jewish
community hosted 2,200 teenage athletes and their
Miller was on Andover's JV team last winter as
coaches from 10 nations and the United States.
a sophomore. She picked up the sport as a sixth-
Over the years, he said, the kids "are pretty much
grader at Hillel Day School of Metropolitan
Detroit. She credits Maccabi Coach Ken Bertin
X-FAcT0R on page 68
with teaching her the skills that got her on the