CYHSB WEEKLY

Cooper Yeshiva High School for Boys

Volume 19, Issue 13

Weekly Puzzle: Word

Wheel

Page 3

Wordscapes: Rise and Fall From Grace

Page 4

Chad Gadya: A Lesson in Jewish History

Page 6

To (Shel)by or Not to (Shel)by Page 7

This Week’s Weekly is sponsored by Ezra Wiener in honor of all of the Weekly Staff’s hard work.

Source:

Red Sarachek Tournament: Cooper Macs Basketball Season in Review

Nathan Greenbaum (’25)

This past week, our Cooper Macs had the privilege of traveling to New York to play in the 30th annual Red Sarachek Tournament. Sarachek, which is run by the Yeshiva University Undergraduate Admissions Office, brings in 24 high school teams from the United States and Canada to participate in a fiveday basketball exhibition.

Preparations for the tournament at Cooper started in late November, at the beginning of their basketball season. Head coach Ian Thomas created plays and sets for the team to run, and at the beginning of the season, the Macs were coming out victorious, with senior captain DR Wogan leading the team, along with juniors Zechariah Lichter and Yosef Vanderwalde who were putting up great numbers each game. As we got closer to the divisional games, things started to go downhill. But regardless of the outcome, we looked at these games as lessons we needed to learn and fix before the tournament.

In early March, as the end of the season approached, Macs Live, the broadcasting team for the tournament released their seeding show, which also announced the schedule of the games. Our team was confident that we would be placed at a reasonable seed, considering we had a respectable season. However, when we found out that we would be the last seed in the tournament, we wanted to prove them wrong. We spent the next few weeks practicing our plays and watching film on some of the teams we were projected to play. We were ready for the tournament.

Continued on the next page.

On Wednesday, March 22 the team flew from Memphis to Newark International Airport. After a long day of traveling, the Wogan family treated us to dinner at Dougies BBQ. We then headed back to the hotel in Woodcliff, New Jersey where we would meet all of the out of town teams. Some of the teams we saw when we first arrived included Farber from Detroit, and Fuchs Mizrachi from Cleveland.

The next day, the team woke up at about 9 AM, and after davening and a quick breakfast stop at Lazy Bean Cafe in Teaneck, we headed our way over to Yeshiva University in New York City. Our Cooper Macs didn’t have any games that day, as only the top 16 seeds would play, but we wanted to see what the atmosphere was like. We arrived and found ourselves in the Mac Stern Athletic Center. The gym was crowded, fans were cheering, and there were cameras everywhere capturing every angle of the game. There were tier I qualifying games playing throughout the whole day, but we came only for one game, Magen David (8) vs DRS (9). The Cooper Macs, the 24th seed, would play the loser of that game, the 8th seed vs the 9th seed. Magen David ended up winning, so our next game would be played at TABC for the tier II qualifying game. Rabbi Gersten also arranged a tour of YU for us, so we got to experience college life on campus. They showed us multiple classrooms, libraries, Batei Midrashim, and the dorms. We ended our tour in front of a and Avi Becker (’24) led a beautiful Kabbalat Shabbat strip of kosher restaurants, including Golan Heights and Gramma’s Pizza. We ended our day with a grand dinner at Noah’s Ark Restaurant in Teaneck.

On Friday morning, we woke up around 8:00 AM, and headed back over to Teaneck for our first game at TABC. Crowds of people were already pouring in, and our Cooper Macs were ready for their first game against DRS from Woodmere, New York. Although our coach couldn’t make it to the tournament, Mr. Jon Wogan made it his responsibility that we had some guidance out on the court. It was a close game at the beginning, but DRS started to pull away at the end and the Macs lost by 15. It was a devastating loss, but the remainder of the day was fun after getting lunch at Sammy’s and frolicking through the streets of Teaneck. We then headed back to the hotel to prepare for Shabbos. They split everyone up into 2 different minyanim,

Shabbos was just like any other shabbaton. There was learning, different speeches from Jewish basketball players, including Zevi Samet of the Yeshiva University Maccabees, and Daniel Tamir, the director of NCSY Jumpshot. We ended Shabbos with an inspirational speech from Elliott Steinmetz, the head coach of the Yeshiva University Macs, and afterwards, we prepared for our next game vs MTA from New York. It was another hard fought battle and the game was close the entire game, but MTA prevailed with some clutch free throws at the end to secure the win. This loss didn’t stop us from having some fun afterwards. With everything Teaneck had to offer, our Cooper Macs made sure that they took advantage of this special opportunity and went restaurant hopping once again.

Sunday, was the big day where the Cooper Mac’s game would be streamed on Macs Live, the Sarachek broadcasting system that is viewed by thousands of people. Our next game was against Or Chaim of Toronto, and with everyone on the team scoring, it was a great game. The next morning we had our last game of the tournament. Due to scheduling issues, we ended up vs Maimonedes from Boston, and this was another very close game, but Maimo won by 5. It might have been a disappointing tournament for the Cooper Macs, but it was definitely a breathtaking experience. We said one last goodbye to Lazy Bean Cafe and Sammy’s Pizza in Teaneck, and we were back on our way to Memphis.