In the summer of 1974, my wife and I moved back to Southfield from Ann Arbor, after my graduation from med school. I was about to start a pediatric internship at Children’s Hospital in Detroit with plans to begin a residency in psychiatry the following July in Cincinnati.
We rented an apartment near 12 and Northwestern, not far from both sets of parents and close to many of our friends who had landed (or stayed) in the Detroit suburbs to pursue their own careers. Leslie found a teaching job in Royal Oak, and I began to commute down the Lodge freeway (back when it had a speed limit) daily to the hospital.
After living in Ann Arbor, our move back closer to home surprisingly felt a bit strange. I was not used to rush hour traffic on my commute to work. I was starting an internship at Children’s Hospital, which was new to me. I began looking for ways to reconnect with my old friends around our new (to me) work schedules. I also had to look for ways to include exercise as part of my week, which, for me at that time, mainly focused on finding a venue for pickup basketball.
While growing up in Detroit, I had always played basketball at the JCC gym on Curtis and Meyers, usually picking up games, as a teen, around my school and (later) work schedule. So, I naturally decided to re-join the Center (as we called it) and look for opportunities to shoot some hoops. But I soon found there were a whole bunch of younger new guys playing B-ball at the Center and that my work schedule made pickup games hard to find. The best opportunity seemed to be for me to join a basketball league on Tuesday nights. So, I signed up for the men’s league (mostly 20- to 30-year-olds guys like me) and I was assigned to a team including folks who were new to the area.
Returning to a league in the old JCC was a jolt of nostalgia, recalling the days when I was 8 or 9 years old playing in a kids’ basketball league. I remember back then counting the days all week long until my next game. As a little kid, I took the whole thing so seriously. I truly thought I was in line for a great career in the NBA. Years later, when I have watched elementary-age kids playing in a gym, I have been amused by seeing nine boys (or girls) hovering around the only kid who knew how to dribble the ball, which was probably exactly how it had looked in those early games (and, believe me, I was not the 8-year-old ace dribbling around the other guys!).
I arrived at the gym to meet my teammates, and I hoped we could hold our own against the other more established teams, once we got used to playing together. However, despite having two excellent players on our squad who were med students from Wayne State, we never jelled as a team during the regular season and found ourselves in last place when it came time for the “one and done” playoffs (our version of March Madness).
Back at home, my wife and I enjoyed living nearer to our friends and family. And we added a third member to our household, a cute little mutt with an underbite, whom we called Buffy (due to her color), although we did not appreciate her habit of running away whenever she saw an open door. Buff LaRuff was obviously street smart, since she always came back a few hours later hungry and sorely in need of a bath.
I mostly enjoyed my year as an intern at Children’s Hospital, especially the extra opportunities I was given to observe psychiatry rounds, learning from Dr. Joe Fishchhoff, one of Detroit’s preeminent child psychiatrists. Joe had a special capacity to relate to kids and taught me a lot in a short time. My internship also gave me the chance to learn more about taking responsibility for the care of my patients. While I was under close supervision, there were many opportunities to learn, especially during those nights on call.
A WINNING SEASON
Meanwhile, back at the JCC, as the last place team, we had to play against the first-place squad in the playoffs. I assumed we were destined to lose. Steve Rosen (now of blessed memory), whom I later learned was good enough to shine on the Detroit JCC Maccabi team, was a fabulous center for our team and his buddy Mike (I think that was his name) was an excellent ball handler. I played forward and, while I hit a few jump shots from the corner, I mostly tried to rebound and play good defense while I watched Steve and Mike perform on the court. Somehow, our two all-stars led the way to an astonishing victory for our last-place team over the team with the top regular season record.
We then were scheduled to play the fourth-place team the next week and when we somehow beat them, we found ourselves matched in the championship tilt against the heavily favored No. 2 quintet. (Why when I write about sports do I start using verbiage like a sportswriter from the 1920s?) And amazingly, we also won the final game the following Tuesday night (although I remember almost nothing about how we did it!). I do not recall whether there was a buzzer beater or if we led from the opening tipoff (which Steve probably won). I do not even recall the name of our team or any of the teams we beat along the way to our playoff victory and the league championship.
In all my years of playing team sports like basketball and softball, this was the only time I ever recall being on a team that ended a season as a champion. But a much more important cause for celebration occurred in the spring when we discovered that my wife was pregnant with our first child. Adina has been the joy of our lives, along with her two younger brothers. And while she did win the school spelling bee one year, her excellence and interests did not extend to basketball.
I doubt that my daughter or her siblings ever knew or cared or remembered that their father was a part of a championship basketball team. But somehow it still matters to me, especially to the 8-year-old kid inside of me who used to imagine he would become an NBA all-star someday! Lately, I feel that same feeling watching my grandsons shooting hoops on our driveway. I had to settle for “former starting forward (I think) for the 1974-75 JCC Men’s League Champion” of a team I will call The Med School Underdogs.
Meanwhile, our true championship moment occurred the following November in Cincinnati when our daughter was born. And that’s when my wife and I learned the true meaning and importance of teamwork, caring for a newborn baby together.
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