32 | OCTOBER 24 • 2024 J
N

R

ob Whelan played baseball 
for Detroit at the 2018 and 
2019 JCC Maccabi Games 
in Orange County, Calif., and the 
Motor City.
The COVID-19 pandemic robbed 
him of two more opportunities to 
do that in 2020 and 2021, when the 
Maccabi Games were cancelled.
When the Commerce resident 
spotted a notice on Facebook that 
volunteer coaches were needed 
for the 2024 Maccabi Games this 
summer in Detroit, he sprang into 
action. 
He applied and was given the 
assignment of coaching a multi-
delegation, 11-member U14 baseball 
team made up of players from 
Arizona, Kentucky, Massachusetts, 
New Jersey, New York and South 
Carolina.
“Even if I had never played in the 
Maccabi Games, I still wanted to be 
involved, to coach,” he said.
Whelan, 20, recruited Kevin 
Whelan, his father, to be his team’s 
assistant coach. Kevin was a coach 
for one of Detroit’s two volleyball 
teams in the 2019 Maccabi Games.
Rob was a member of the Detroit 
U14 baseball team when he played 
in the Maccabi Games. 
He ended up facing his former 
team in the semifinals of this year’s 
competition and losing. 
But the team led by the father-
and-son Whelans beat Team Ohio 
in the bronze medal game.
How did players who didn’t know 
each other until they arrived in 
Detroit and didn’t practice as a team 
win a medal and go 4-2 in their six 

games?
“The guys came together and 
had fun,” Rob said. “I started out by 
asking them, ‘Where does everyone 
want to play this week?’ The guys 
were a little too honest. Only three 
said they were pitchers. 
“But we ended up having more 
pitchers than we needed. Everyone 
who wanted to pitch got a chance to 

do it.”
Kevin said the team was made up 
of talented baseball players who love 
the sport.
“They didn’t come to Detroit just 
to be on a team with their buddies,” 
he said. “They were here on their 
own to play baseball.”
Kevin said he loved watching 
his son coach. Those roles were 

reversed when Rob was a youngster 
in house and travel baseball.
“Rob bounced ideas off me, like if 
was a good time to go out and talk 
to his pitcher,” Kevin said. “That was 
my job.” 
Rob said the hardest part of 
coaching was making decisions 
involving playing time because of 
the nature of the Maccabi Games.
“We wanted to win, of course, but 
I also wanted everybody to have a 
good experience in Detroit, to have 
fun,” he said.
The semifinal game vs. Detroit 
had a special meaning for the 
Whelans. 
One of Detroit’s assistant coaches 
was Jonah Farabi. The Whelan and 
Farabi families are close friends. 
Rob and Jonah were teammates 
on the U14 Detroit baseball team in 
the 2018 and 2019 Maccabi Games, 
and on the Walled Lake Northern 
High School baseball team. 
Now they both attend the 
University of Michigan. Rob is a 
junior and Jonah is a sophomore.
Rob is a pitcher on the U-M club 
baseball team. He was a star pitcher 
for WL Northern, going 9-0 during 
his junior season in 2021.
A biology major at U-M, his 
career goal is to be a veterinarian.
“I like biology, I like animals, and 
I don’t like desk jobs,” he said. 

Send sports news to stevestein502004@

yahoo.com. 

 
CORRECTION: in last week’s story, “Silver 

Linings’” the coach of this year’s Detroit 

Maccabi hockey team should have been 

identified as Mark Weiss.

A baseball team made up of players from six states coached by a 
local father and son won a bronze medal at the JCC Maccabi Games.
Strangers No More 

STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

SPORTS

Rob and Kevin 
Whelan take a 
bite out of a JCC 
Maccabi Games 
bronze medal.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

