quick hits
Detroit Country Day School
senior girls soccer star Elle
Hartje was named to the
Division 2 All-State first
team.
An honorable mention
All-State choice when she
was a sophomore, Hartje
was a three-sport star
at Country Day. She also
played hockey and tennis
for the Yellowjackets.
Hartje will move on
this fall to Yale University,
where she’
ll play hockey
and soccer.
BY STEVE STEIN
sports
Two umpires who work in Inter-Congregational Men’
s Club
Summer Softball League games were honored recently by
USA Softball.
Barry “Rat” Lepofsky and Thomas Donovan each
received an award for 40 years of softball umpiring.
They were saluted during an annual breakfast for softball
umpires hosted by USA Softball of Metro Detroit.
Lepofsky was inducted into the Michigan USSSA Hall of
Fame in its umpire category in 1993.
David Vinsky is off
to a solid start in his
minor league baseball
career.
The 15th-round
draft choice last
month of the St. Louis
Cardinals has already
been promoted by the
Cardinals from the rookie league Johnson
City team to short-season Class A State
College.
In 13 total minor league games through
July 8, Vinsky was batting .269 with two
home runs, eight RBI, three doubles and
nine runs scored.
Vinsky is a 6-foot, 198-pound outfielder
who starred at Farmington Hills Harrison
High School and Northwood University.
Make it three straight state championships and eight
state titles since 2003 for Birmingham Marian High
School girls soccer coach Barry Brodsky.
The Mustangs achieved the three-peat June 14 by
defeating Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern 2-1 in dou-
ble overtime in the Division 2 state championship game
in East Lansing.
Marian is now the seventh girls soccer program in the
state to win three consecutive state titles.
STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
J
ason Boschan won’
t stop running.
The Bloomfield Hills native
is one of about 1,000 people on
the planet who has run a marathon
on all seven continents and run in
all six major marathons — Boston,
London, Chicago, New York, Berlin
and Tokyo.
Now the 40-year-old Charlotte,
N.C., resident is on a mission to run
a half-marathon in each of the 50
states.
Boschan doesn’
t run to compete.
“I don’
t train. I just run. I think
I have respectable times in races
because I’
m so motivated,” he said.
So why does he run? Because of his
grandfather, pediatrician Dr. Louis
Heyman of Bloomfield Hills, who
died in 2013 at age 88 from dementia.
Boschan’
s driving passion is to raise
funds and awareness for Alzheimer’
s
disease research in honor of his
grandfather, whom he called Papa.
Boschan’
s cause is called Run4Papa.
“Watching my grandfather lose his
ability to communicate because of
dementia was absolutely heartbreak-
ing,” Boschan said.
All of Boschan’
s trips for races are
self-funded. One-hundred percent
of contributions to his cause fund
Bloomfi
eld Hills man travels around the world to
raise money for Alzheimer’
s disease research.
Marathon
Man
research at Northwestern University’
s
Mesulam Center for Cognitive
Neurology and Alzheimer’
s Disease.
Boschan has raised about $243,000
since 2012.
The next race on Boschan’
s sched-
ule is the Mount Rushmore Half-
Marathon on Sept. 21 in Keystone,
S.D.
The date and venue couldn’
t be
more appropriate.
Boschan’
s grandfather died Sept.
21, 2013. This will be Boschan’
s 21st
half-marathon in the 21st state. His
goal is to raise $2,121.
“The one place my grandfather
wanted to visit before he passed away
was Mount Rushmore,” Boschan said.
“Unfortunately, because of his frag-
ile mental state due to dementia, we
were unable to get him there.”
Boschan’
s wife, Carrie Boschan,
and his parents, James and Shelley,
Boschan will be in South Dakota with
him for what will be an emotional
half-marathon.
Boschan gets the word out about
his cause mainly through
social media.
Boschan’
s website
(run4papa.com) has about
3,500 monthly visitors.
He writes a blog, cre-
ates two- to three-minute
YouTube videos of his races,
and he communicates through his
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
accounts.
His videos have gotten more than
50,000 views and he has more than
5,000 followers on each of his social
media platforms. His database of fol-
lowers includes more than 2,000 per-
sonal acquaintances and more than
500,000 through Northwestern.
After never running a race in his
life, Boschan has run in 12 marathons
since 2000, including two before
Run4Papa was founded. They were
the London Marathon in 2000 and
the New York City Marathon in 2010.
Boschan had to stop at mile 25.8 in
the 2013 Boston Marathon because
of the bombings at the finish line of
the 26.2-mile race. He ran the Big 5
Marathon in South Africa in 2013 on
an animal reserve.
He ran the Great Wall of China
Marathon in 2012, ascending and
descending 5,164 steps, and the
Antarctica Marathon in below-freez-
LEFT: Jason Boschan
at the Great Wall
of China Marathon.
BELOW: Jason Boschan
and Alex Turoff at the
Antarctica Marathon.
20 July 18 • 2019
jn