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aren Gordon’s dream was to
play basketball representing the
United States in Israel.
That wish didn’t come true, so she
did the next best thing this summer.
She coached a U.S. basketball team in
Israel.
Gordon, who has been involved
with the Detroit Maccabi program
for 32 years, coached the U.S. 16U
girls basketball team at the inaugural
International Maccabi Youth Games.
At the end of the gold medal game
— which the U.S. lost to an Israeli team
— Gordon gathered her players around
her to talk about the experience they’d
just had.
“Not that they lost the gold medal
game, but the fact that they played bas-
ketball in Israel,” she said.
Gordon tried out for the U.S. wom-
en’s basketball team that played in the
Maccabiah Games in Israel in 1985. She
was 18 at the time. She made it to the
final round of tryouts but was cut.
“I was hoping to play in the 1989
Maccabiah Games but women’s bas-
ketball was cut, for several years as it
turned out,” she said. “My chances of
playing in Israel were done.
“I told the girls after the gold medal
game that they got to play in Israel, and
I was honored to coach them. It was
quite a touching moment.”
There were eight girls on Gordon’s
team. They were from New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ontario
(Canada did not have a team).
There were no tryouts for the team,
and the team had only a two-hour
practice after it arrived in Israel before
it began the competition, which was
held in a school in Haifa.
Three teams from Israel and the U.S.
team made up the 16U girls field. Two
Israeli teams weren’t very good. The
other Israeli team, from a basketball
academy in Ramut HaSharon, was a
different story.
“They were a well-oiled machine,”
TOP: Coach Karen Gordon huddles with her
U.S. 16U girls basketball team after losing
the gold medal game at the International
Maccabi Youth Games in Israel; Gordon meets
6-foot-11 former NBA player Danny Schayes
and his son Logan at the International Maccabi
Youth Games in Israel.
Gordon said. “The 12 girls on the team
had played together for four years.
They deserved to win the gold medal.”
Gordon’s team beat the other Israeli
teams 58-24 and 54-17 in pool play.
The U.S. team lost 65-52 in pool play
and 75-57 in the gold medal game to
the Ramut HaSharon team.
“We gave them a fight in both
games,” Gordon said.
International rules and their interpre-
tations by referees left Gordon and her
players exasperated, she said.
In the gold medal game, U.S. players
were slapped with technical fouls for
trying to take the basketball away from
an opposing player with both hands and
yelling “shot” when a shot was taken to
alert their teammates.
“When we were taking a free throw,
the other team was singing ‘Happy
Birthday’ to one of their players who
had come off the court, but that wasn’t
worth a technical foul,” Gordon said,
still laughing about the scene.
“We weren’t mad at the other team,”
Gordon said. “After the game, the teams
traded jerseys and took pictures.”
Gordon and her players did a lot of
touring after the competition, enjoying
themselves despite the summer heat in
Israel.
“The bottom line is we had a great
time and an amazing experience,” she
said.
After she returned home to
Farmington Hills, Gordon headed to
California a few days later to fulfill her
role as co-delegation head for Detroit at
the JCC Maccabi Games & ArtsFest. ■
Send news to stevestein502004@yahoo.com.