To Lit' !

Memorable
Character

Intensity, passion and love of numbers
make Rick Kaye a bridge champ.

Judith Doner Berne

Special to the Jewish News

ick Kaye fully acknowl-
edges that he is a char-
acter.
"Yeah, I'm different:' Kaye
says. "I don't hurt anyone's feel-
ings, but I say what I'm thinking.
And I'm obsessive about a few
things and totally oblivious to
everything else. Believe'it or not,
I couldn't tell you the color of the
walls in my office without look-
ing."
Indeed, three passions
dominate Kaye's life: the game
of bridge, New York City and
University of Michigan football
and basketball away games.
After his family, of course.
At age 61, the Bingham Farms

U-M
Victors

Bridge team
claims
collegiate
championship.

Judith Doner Berne
Special to the Jewish News

Ann Arbor

W

hen the
- University of
Michigan trots
its championship teams onto
the gridiron in the annual
half-time ceremony this fall,
will Jeremy Vosko and Ilya
Podolyako be among them?

34 August 24 * 2006

Rick Kaye concentrates on his next move.

resident is six years into a
semi-retirement he had always
planned to the exact date, time
and minute, in keeping with the
actuary that he is.
It wasn't that he was unhappy
over 25 years as partner in
charge of actuarial services
for Coopers'& Lybrand, which
became PricewaterhouseCoopers
LLP in Detroit. "I love the pres-
sure, the tension. I operate best
under pressure Kaye says.
And despite four children,
born over a 21-year period,
he had been able to follow the
Wolverines and visit the Big
Apple, seeing Broadway and off-
Broadway plays (no musicals!)
and eating steak at Frankie and
Johnnie's and Peter Lugar, pretty
much at will.

Perfect Retirement
"I kept my clients and I get to
play bridge says Kaye, defining
his perfect retirement.
He returned to the game after
a lapse of 27 years. Not only does
he play six times a week spring
and summer (when U-NI has

The two West Bloomfield
High School and recent U-M
graduates, along with team-
mates Jonathan Zimbler
of Winnetka, Ill., and .Kevin
Fay of Ann Arbor, captured
the 2006 Collegiate Bridge
Championship held in Chicago
July 14-23.
In football vernacular, they
beat UCLA, the top seed, by
an extra point in the semis
and Princeton by a safety in
the finals.
"I think it meant more to
us than Princeton," says
Podolyako, who, along with
Vosko, helped establish bridge
clubs, first at West Bloomfield
High and then at U-M.
"Winning the bridge cham-
pionship meant a lot to our
team," Vosko agrees. "Each
of us put a lot into the bridge
club at Michigan and we were
very conscious that this was
the last chance we would have

to represent our school."
"I'm thrilled for him," says
Nancy Vosko, Jeremy's moth-
er. "It's a nice culmination of
the four years."
Vosko, 22, and Podolyako,
21, could not have foreseen
that skills they began devel-
oping in a lunch-time bridge
game back in the WBHS caf-
eteria in 2000 would lead to a
national championship for U-M
in 2006.
While their high school club
had 8-10 active members from
the get-go, establishing the U-
M club was a struggle.
"It had an extremely shaky
start, with our first meeting
only having one other person
[Zimblerl," Vosko says. They
tried to_recruit by posting
fliers around campus to the
effect of: "Bridge: Where the
True Playa's At."
"We got lots of people to
come to the club once, but

"He is a memorable character
at PricewaterhouseCoopers:' says
Bernie Kent, who retired in June
as the firm's personal financial
services partner. "Many people
are amazed by his command of
numbers.
"He was also an outstand-
ing motivational speaker:' says
Kent, who lives in Franklin. "One
speech he gave 20 years ago,
people were still talking about it
10 years later."

no football or basketball games
— home or away — and New
York's theater season is flat),
but for the last two years he is
the state's leading Master Point
winner. Last month, he played in
the 10-day American Contract
Bridge League tournament in
Chicago.
The Grant Marsee Memorial
Trophy, presented annually by
the Michigan Bridge Association,
stands atop a living room mantel
with his name engraved on it for
2004 and 2005.
He still works 1,000 hours a
year, he says, as a consultant to
three states in which he helped
start prepaid college tuition
plans. One of these is Michigan,
where the Michigan Education
Trust (MET) was the first of its

kind in the nation.
Judaism also is an important
part of Kaye's life. He walks the
mile from his home to Temple
Beth El many a Saturday morn-
ing.
"Bridge is different than peo-
ple think:' Kaye says. "Winners
do the simple things well — not
the complicated ones. It takes
discipline. In life, if you play not
to lose — like 'Bo' (former U-M
football coach Schembechler
whom Kaye regularly criticized),
you lose. But in bridge, it's who
makes fewer mistakes."
A "poker face" is important in
bridge, Kaye says. "If you're in a
bad contract, you can't let them
know."
He says he doesn't become
angry with a partner for mak-

Celebrating their victory are Ilya Podolyako and Jeremy Vosko,

both of West Bloomfield, Jonathan Zimbler of Winnetka, Ill.; and

Kevin Fay of Ann Arbor.

nobody really cared about the
game," Vosko says.
"We found it hard to con-
vince freshmen and sopho-
mores to trade extra beer for
overtricks," Podolyako adds.
But, at some point, a few

bridge-playing graduate stu-
dents hooked them up with
the local bridge community.
They helped us "promote
bridge as an intellectual chal-
lenge for those who have
grown bored of poker and