July 16, 2009 | 1:52 pm

Polo Mom Poolside at 18th Maccabiah

Posted by Gina Lobaco

The games go on.  It’s Day 5 of the Chai Maccabiah and box scores can be found for most events in the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz.  Just as the games go on, so do the snafus and foul-ups., 

On Tuesday morning, just as the Israel-Mexico softball match was under way, local cops showed up and stopped the game.  Seems like the Maccabiah officials hadn’t procured the necessary business license from the local municipality.  After a battle of quotes in local papers,  the problem was sorted out when the necessary license was procured and the softball series resumed today.

The Indian delegation of cricketeers handily dispatched the Israeli cricket team.  Steve Soboroff, who put together a 45-minute email fundraising campaign to bring them to Israel, said that this was the only time he was glad to hear that Israel was defeated. 

Jamie McCourt (nee Luskin) was in Tel Aviv from L.A. as part of the Committee of 18 delegation that is attempting to help bring U.S. sports marketing and promotion expertise to the Maccabiah World Union.  She also made a significant donation to support the event.  On Tuesday, after a morning meeting which took her, Steve Soboroff and others on the committee to meet with Shimon Peres at the president’s house in Jeusalem, she went back to Tel Aviv to throw out the opening pitch of the baseball series.

Anywhere you go in Israel, you will see groups of Maccabiah athletes and supporters—at the shuk in Tel Aviv, at Yad Vashem and at the Kotel.  They are here in large numbers and not all Tel Avivians are thrilled about the extra congestion they bring to already clogged city arteries.  Hard to believe, but traffic here is much worse than L.A.

WATER POLO MOM—OPINIONATED BUT NOT A PIT BULL WITH LIPSTICK

But I’m here as the mother of an athlete, so my time is spent schlepping by sherut out to the Wingate Institute (the country’s national sports facility) to watch the water polo matches.  And a disclaimer:  I’m also not a sports reporter, although I’ve spent a lot of time in bleachers over the years watching my boys play baseball, basketball, soccer and water polo.  So if I give offense, by deviating from customary observations, please excuse.  Unlike hockey moms, we’re not pitbulls with lipstick—but we do have our opnions.

The US men’s team beat the Canadian team 18-12 on Tuesday.  The Canadian players are, shall we say, “mature”—with many of them in their mid-30s and one of them meeting the mid-century mark.  They were out-swum by the US team which is younger and far fitter.  Let’s just say nobody will be calling the Canadian team to do a calendar shoot, with a few exceptions.

On Wednesday, the US took on Brazil, which gave a good effort, but went down to defeat 14-5.  Brazil put the first ball in the cage, but soon Adam Metzger and Nestor Dordoni scored two apiece and ran up the score to 4-1.  By the end of the first quarter, the US was in control.  By the end of the game the score went like this:

Adam Metzger (Cal ’00) 2
Jamie Neuwirth (JHU ’10) 1
Nestor Dordoni (UCSD ’09) 3
Brad Roslyn (Bucknell ’06) 1
Kevin Platshon (Cal ’07) 3
Zach White (Cal ’11) 4

THIS JUST IN:  U.S. DEFEATS ISRAEL 8-6 IN WATER POLO

Things could get interesting in the water polo final.  The US team just beat Israel 8-6.  The US team has not won the final against Israel since 1973.  Seventeen-year-old Spencer Borisoff, called “mighty mouse” by his teammates scored two points.  Spencer is from La Canada in L.A. County and will be joining his older brother, Devon, on the USC squad this fall.  He is the youngest of the three SoCal brothers who all play at high levels of competition.  Their counterparts in NorCal are the Platshon brothers—Kevin, Aaron and Scott—who respectively play or played for Cal (’07),  Bucknell (’05)  and Stanford (’13) and all of whom have berths on this Chai Maccabiah squad.  Ever reliable Nestor Dordoni scored 2; Zach White scored 1 and Kevin Platshon scored 1.  The final will be played at Wingate after havdallah on Saturday. 

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July 13, 2009 | 4:31 pm

U.S. Men’s Water Polo Looking Strong at Maccabi Games

Posted by Gina Lobaco

A U.S. player up against Mexico's goalie

Of the 900 members of the U.S.delegation to the 18th Maccabiah, over one-quarter of them hail from the Southern California area.  The SoCal contingent includes heavy representation in karate, volleyball, swimming, soccer, and water polo.  Among the world’s toughest sports, water polo players like to say it has “no helmets, no pads—just spherical objects used as projectiles.”  (I’m paraphrasing here—this is a family blog!)  And those balls are thrown at speeds of 90 mph at very close range.

Seven of the U.S. men’s 13-man squad hail from Southern California and are coached by Ben Quittner, who for 13 years coached at H20 polo powerhouse Stanford.  If past is prologue, it looks like Israel is once again favored for the gold. In fact, the U.S. team hasn’t taken home the first-place medal since 1973.  It’s no surprise, because the Israelis constitute the national team and train together all year round as members of the IDF.  And while their average age of 24 is the same as the U.S. men, they are all the same age, while the U.S.men range from 18-24 and have only been playing together a few weeks.

Still, the U.S. men looked good in an early scrimmage against the Israelis, losing only by a goal scored in the last-seconds of the game.  But the U.S. really showed its ability in a blowout against the Mexican team, 23-3 on Monday, the first day of competition. 

  The Mexican team arrived with much fanfare and its huge group of fans and unpacked red-white-and-green noisemakers and proceeded to fill the indoor aquatic stadium at the Wingate Institute with the kind of din you expect to hear at a World Cup playoff.  They waved flags, blew horns and spun gigantic groggers in the national colors and the spirited cheering could be heard all the way to Mexico City.  But in the end it wasn’t anywhere near enough.

Even though the U.S. team has only been playing together as a team for four weeks, they showed why they are the team for the Israelis to beat.  They had their own cheering section, too—some family members accompanied the team, but a group of young Israeli boys and girls, all water polo players, took great delight in chanting:  USA! USA! USA!  So nice to be in a country where Americans are truly welcome. 

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July 13, 2009 | 12:31 am

Maccabiah Athletes Find their Party

Posted by Gina Lobaco

Michal Amdurski urged the athletes to "Get Physical."

Max Nordau is kvelling from the great weight room in the sky.  The Zionist father of the Maccabi games dreamed of Jews, with rippling muscles and athletic talent who would dispel the old stereotype of physical weakness and give rise to a “new Jew.”

The Sunday evening welcome party of the 18th Maccabi fulfilled Max’s dreams many times over, with Jewish athletes from all over the planet partying hard at the Kfar Maccabiah in Ramat Gan and showing the results of their conditioning.

Tel Aviv has a huge youth culture, and the Maccabiah athletes fit right in.  Thousands of them took over the extensive park grounds, exchanging T shirts, eating Chinese food (go figure) , flirting, dancing and sizing up the competition. 

A huge soundstage with a DJ and light show kept the crowd stirred up.  A female pop trio sang Israeli folk songs redone as electronica followed by a well-intentioned but ragged “tribute to Michael Jackson” by a troupe of dancers who could have used a little more rehearsal time.  For the final act, singer/dancer Michal Amdurski covered Olivia Newton John’s “Let’s Get Physical” with no apparent irony. 

It is amazing to see so many Jews from so many different places.  It’s great to hear German spoken by members of that delegation attired in their punning “Love Isreal”  T-shirts.  It’s amusing to see softball players from a South American nation with long unpronounceable Eastern European names stitched across their polo shirts smoking cigarettes and looking like they could also be competitive in a hot-dog eating contest—definitely not meeting Max Nordau’s approval .

  And who knew Finland has so many Jews?  There is even a delegation from Palau.  I asked a blond blue-eyed Spanish athlete how many his country sent.  When I responded that 76 seemed like a big number for Spain, he said that they have a large Jewish community—15,000.  “Not so many,” I replied.  “Well, the Inquisition really did us in,” he replied.

Brazilians, Russians, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Brits, Mexicans, Belgians, Argentineans and Dutch.  With over 5,000 athletes from 90 different countries, at times it seems a little like the “Jew N.”

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July 10, 2009 | 5:12 am

L.A. FIFTH-GRADER READY FOR PRIME TIME

Posted by Gina Lobaco

Yoni is cruising to Israel for the 18th Maccabiah!

Yoni Ben Naim has traveled to Israel at least yearly since his birth nine years ago, but this summer, he’s a little nervous about the trip.  The Brawerman Elementary School fifth-grader has been tapped to serve as an on-air interviewer for JLTV‘s coverage of the 18th Maccabiah, the quadrennial international Jewish sports competition which begins Monday, July 13, in Israel. (JLTV’s coverage is available nationally on channel 366 via DirecTV; otherwise check your local cable company for channels and times or www.jewishlifeTV.com ). 

Yoni isn’t nervous about language differences—he is fluent in Hebrew because, as he explains “My dad is Israeli and he has been teaching me since I was a baby.”  Yoni’s fluency will come in handy as will his knowledge and enthusiasm for a range of sports, but particularly basketball and soccer, arguably the Maccabiah’s biggest and most closely watched competitions.  Eleven countries are competing in the basketball competition and 18 nations are sending soccer teams. 

But he is a little nervous about being on TV.  He has been practicing his interviewing technique with his dad, Gal Ben Naim, and watching ESPN for cues on how the pros do it.  Stan Van Gundy, the Orlando Magic coach and broadcaster is one of his inspirations and models.

What will he do to avoid a case of the jitters, knowing that thousands of people will be watching him? Yoni says he plans to “not look at the crowd so much” and focus instead on whomever he is interviewing.  He has a set of questions he will ask, of course, but doesn’t want to over-prepare. 

Yoni is very excited, but doesn’t quite know what to expect.  Even though he’s very familiar with Israel, having spent a lot of time at the Jerusalem home of his Savta and Saba, this trip will be a first.  After all, not many 5th graders are ready for prime time in two languages.

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