SEPTEMBER 15 • 2022 | 29

He doesn’t participate in the team’s pre-game prayer, 
although he is close by.
He keeps kosher during Passover and fasts during Yom 
Kippur.
“When my teammates ask why I’m struggling at practice 
during Yom Kippur, I tell them I haven’t eaten or drank 
anything for hours,” he said.
Off the field, the 21-year-old wears a Star of David 
around his neck.
His teammates — especially his buddies on the offensive 
line — respect him.
When he was a freshman, the offensive linemen’s annual 

Halloween party was transformed into a second bar mitz-
vah party for Gelb, with his permission of course.
“I wore one of my bar mitzvah party shirts I borrowed 
from my father, I recited the Shema, everyone wore a kip-
pah, and the guys dressed as rabbis,” he said. “I was fine 
with that.”
Gelb’s mother, Detroit native Betsy Shapiro, said she’s 
proud of the way her son has conducted himself as one 
of the few practicing Jewish football 
players at a Power 5 school.
She feels he’s increased his Jewish 
identity since he went to U-M. She 
has nicknamed him the Michigan 
Maccabi.
Like her son, Shapiro was an out-
standing athlete in high school and 
college.
She played tennis at Bloomfield Hills 
Andover High School before graduat-
ing in 1978, and she played tennis at 
U-M before graduating in 1982.
Her experiences playing tennis at 
U-M during that era created what she 
calls a thrilling and ironic dichotomy 
watching her son play football for the 
Wolverines.
“As a female athlete at U-M during 
that time, I hated the football pro-
gram,” she said. “(Football coach) Bo 
Schembechler didn’t support wom-
en’s sports, and neither did (Athletic 
Director) Don Canham.
“The football program got all the 
resources and all the attention, and as 
women athletes, we were resentful.”

FUN IN MICHIGAN
Gelb seemed destined to go to U-M, 
and not just because his mother and 
two older sisters are U-M graduates.
The seed was planted long ago in the 
northern tip of the Lower Peninsula.
When he was little, he enjoyed spend-
ing time at Camp Michigania, a place 
for U-M Alumni Association members 
and their families on Walloon Lake.
But Gelb struggled academically when he came to U-M.
Looking back, he doesn’t feel his public school education in 
Washington, D.C., prepared him for the rigors of the college 
classroom even though he graduated high school with a 3.8 
grade-point average.
“I had a 1.9 GPA in my first semester at U-M and became 
academically ineligible to play football. I blame it on my bad 
study habits and minimum effort,” he said.
U-M coach Jim Harbaugh met with Gelb and gave him an 
ultimatum: get all A
’s and B’s in the next semester, or he was off 
the team.

LEFT: Mica Gelb sizes 
up the Northern Illinois 
defense during a game last 
season.

RIGHT: Mica Gelb at age 
3 at Camp Michigania in 
2003.

BOTTOM RIGHT: Betsy 
Shapiro and her son Mica 
Gelb.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

GELB FAMILY
GELB FAMILY

continued on page 30

