OCTOBER 15 • 2020 | 29
itzing with friends.
Each day before leaving the
JCC, Flusty stopped at the
Hall of Fame plaques of two
longtime personal and family
friends, Sam “Sonny” Taub,
who died in 2019, and Ralph
Goldstein, who died in 1988.
Flusty touched each plaque
then kissed his hand, like one
does after touching a mezu-
zah.
“The three of us, all lefties,
played a lot of basketball at
the JCC while we were grow-
ing up,
” Flusty said.
Taub, who was inducted
into the Hall of Fame in 1992,
was an all-city basketball and
baseball player at Detroit
Central High School, bas-
ketball and baseball player
at the University of Detroit,
member of three slow-pitch
softball national champion-
ship teams, college basketball
referee in the Big Ten and
Mid-American conferences,
and Detroit Mumford High
School basketball coach and
athletic director.
Goldstein, who was induct-
ed into the Hall of Fame in
1983, was an All-State basket-
ball player at Detroit Central,
captain of the U-D basketball
team and the first U-D guard
to score more than 1,000
points.
Flusty worries about
not being able to continue
remembering his friends
in such a traditional Jewish
manner.
He’
s already experienced
a bad day, he said, when he
and his wife Marilynn, who
celebrated their 60th wedding
anniversary in January, recent-
ly cleaned out their lockers at
the JCC.
Maynard Flusty doesn’
t
have the basketball resume of
his Hall of Fame friends, but it
isn’
t shabby.
He was playing for
Highland Park Community
College when he was drafted
into the Army in 1952 during
the Korean War. After being
discharged in 1954, Flusty was
a player and coach at Detroit
Institute of Technology.
No discussions about the
Hall of Fame’
s future at the
JCC had taken place as of last
week.
“
As important as the Hall of
Fame is to us at the Michigan
Jewish Sports Foundation,
we understand the JCC has a
lot on its plate these days and
we’
re further down the line,
”
Raider said.
Raider has been a JCC
health club member for more
than 35 years, running on the
indoor track every morning
he’
s there.
Stuart Raider
SUSAN ADAMS PHOTOGRAPHY
MARILYNN FLUSTY
Maynard Flusty