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Big Winner

Young gymnast leads team to state title.

Steve Stein
Special to the Jewish News

A

ri Bekker became a state cham-
pion March 26. Two days later,
he celebrated his eighth birth-

day.
Young Ari is a member of the boys
Level 5 gymnastics team at the Michigan
Academy of Gymnastics in Westland.
He competed in six events at the USA
Gymnastics boys state meet in Hartland
and finished first in floor exercise, high bar,
parellel bars and rings.
Those wins earned him the all-around
title for the 6-7 age group in Level 5, and
helped MAG's Level 5 team capture the
state championship.
Leon Bekker, Ari's father, is the boys
and girls program director at MAG, where
he's taught since 1998. While Ari's parents
are happy he's competing in gymnastics
and proud of his accomplishments, they're
making sure he has his priorities straight.
"School comes first," said Nita Beurer-
Bekker, Ari's mother. "And it's important
that Ari likes gymnastics and has fun doing
it. So far, he really likes it."

.

Ari is a second-grader at Doherty
Elementary School and the Shul Hebrew
School, both in West Bloomfield.
Beurer-Bekker said her son is a good stu-
dent, and she credits gymnastics in part for
his gold-medal work in the classroom.
"He's had to learn time-management
skills in order to practice and compete," she
said.
Gymnastics also has taught Ari life les-
sons, his mother said. "He's learned you
don't finish first all the time she said. "And
that's OK as long as you've worked hard,
done your best and learned from what you
did wrong."
Ari started taking gymnastics classes at
MAG when he was 4 and began competing
when he was 6.
Leon and Nita Beurer-Bekker also have a
son, Elan, 5.

Strat-O-Matic
Did you play Strat-O-Matic baseball when
you were a kid? Long before fantasy base-
ball, Strat-O-Matic fanatics played simu-
lated games by setting lineups, throwing
dice and checking results on player cards
and boards.

Hal Richman, who came up
with the concept for the game as
an 11-year-old growing up on Long
Island, was inducted last month into
the National Jewish Sports Hall of
Fame in Commack, N.Y.
Strat-O-Matic is celebrating its
50th anniversary this year. Back
in 1961, while he was a student at
Bucknell University, Richman spent
$7,000 to buy ad space in Sports
Illustrated to market his game.
Among its players through the years
Ari Bekker starts
was President George W. Bush.
his floor routine.
Also inducted into the Hall of
in a new book, The 1945 Detroit Tigers:
Fame's 19th class were three-time U.S.
Nine Old Men and One Young Left Arm
Olympian and 2010 gold medal bobsled-
Win It All, (303 pages, $29.95, McFarland
der Steve Mesler, Olympic synchronized
& Company) by Burge Carmon Smith.
swimmer Jane Katz, and former San
The young left arm belonged to 24-year-
Francisco 49ers lineman Harris Barton.
old southpaw Hal Newhouser, who won 25
games.
Hank's Story
The book can be purchased at www.
Hank Greenberg returned to the Detroit
mcfarlandpub.com or
Tigers in the middle of the 1945 season
(800) 253-2187. LI
after serving in the U.S. Army Air Force
during World War II. He helped the Bengals
Please send sports news to
win the 1945 World Series.
sports@thejewishnews.com .
Greenberg's tale is one of many detailed

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April 14 a 2011

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