The Goods

Details: Category: The Goods; Published: 27 April 2011

tenniskaplan Scarsdale has a tradition for strong tennis teams, most years sending students to the sectionals and onto the states. In fact, last year, the Boys Varsity A team ended the season 13-1, dropping only one match to Horace Greeley. This year talent runs deep, with nationally ranked players on the team making the matches look more like games you see at the U.S. Open than on the Scarsdale High School courts. Though the season got off to a cold and rainy beginning, Scarsdale started strong, and before the spring break they were 4-0, winning matches against Mamaroneck, Cross River, Bronxville and Pelham. Hopes were high at the first match following the vacation against powerhouse Cold Spring Harbor on April 26th. This was a non-league match set up by the coaches to bring two top-ranked teams together. Parents, friends and coaches came out to watch some first-rate tennis as the teams faced off.

Playing first singles was junior Austin Kaplan. A tournament player Kaplan trains many days a week and travels to

Ben Fife

matches on the weekends as well. He is ranked 92 in the country. He faced Josh Levine, an opponent he knew from the circuit and played a challenging match splitting the first two sets 3-6, and 6-2, but losing the third set 6-0. Playing second singles was Ben Fife, the third Fife in a family of three boys, all gifted players. He also travels to tournaments on the weekends, and is nationally ranked. He fell to Eric Ambrosio, splitting the first two sets and losing in the third. The youngest player on the team is sophomore Jonny Baker, also a contender on the circuit. He is ranked 32 in New York and 626 in the country. Up to the Cold Spring Harbor match he had not dropped a game this season and on Tuesday he defeated Connor Dauer in two sets, 6-4, 6-4.

Playing first doubles for the team are the duo of co-captain David Goldberg and Thomas Kohn. Goldberg is a four year varsity player, who went to the states for the past two years, and Kohn spent last year at the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Florida. Both are seniors at SHS and they played an athletic and well choreographed match, diving behind each other, and switching sides of the court with amazing speed. However, they also were defeated by Cold Spring

David Goldberg

Harbor, losing 6-2, 6-4. The second doubles team of junior Danny Somekh and co-captain and senior David Josselsohn were bested by their opponents in a three set match, but things went better for the third and fourth doubles teams. Juniors Jared Greenwald and Ian Rabin defeated Cold Spring Harbor in two sets, 6-4, 7-5 and senior Ben Bernstein and his partner, junior Andrew Gorobetz were off the court quickly, winning 6-0, 6-1. Also playing for Scarsdale are juniors Will Heffner and Andreas Landgrebe who together form another doubles team and junior Ben Shapiro, a singles player and another tournament contender.

On Tuesday, Scarsdale came away with their first loss of the season, at 4 matches for Cold Spring Harbor vs. 3 for

Gorobetz and Bernstein

Scarsdale. As of April 27, the team record is 5-1. On Thursday April 28th, the Raiders face Horace Greeley, which could be their toughest league match of the season.

The players’ enthusiasm for the sport, the team and Coach Jennifer Roane is evident and all the boys looked proud to be playing for Scarsdale. We wish them the best of luck as the season unfolds.

Baker, Somekh, Roane, Goldberg, Kohn

Pictured at top: Austin Kaplan and Thomas Kohn
Written with help from DJ Holloway and Bryan Solomon

Details: Category: The Goods; Published: 14 April 2011

slopen6 On Saturday morning April 8th players, coaches and parents gathered at Crossway Field for the 2011 Opening Day Ceremony for Scarsdale Little League. The event was hosted by Channel 4 sports anchor and Scarsdale resident Bruce Beck. Guest star, Graig Nettles who is a former New York Yankee third baseman was also on hand. Nettles is an All Star and World Series winner, who lead the Yankees over the Dodgers in 1977.

The Scarsdale Little League has over 900 players spanning over 70 teams from kindergarten through 8th grade. The season runs from April through June, and there are also summer teams and a fall league. The league is run by 15 volunteer board members who meet monthly to slopen3 coordinate all aspects of the league --including uniforms, umpires, fields, tryouts, player development, equipment, registration, and special events like the opening day ceremonies, photo day, and Yankee Game Day.

Learn more here: http://scarsdalelittleleague.com

SLOpen slopen4 slopen5 SLOpen2 Photos Courtesy of Paul Aresu Photography, www.paularesu.com

Details: Category: The Goods; Published: 06 April 2011

alanschwarz Scarsdale High School graduate and New York Times reporter Alan Schwarz returned to Scarsdale on March 20th to address the Scarsdale Forum at the Scarsdale Women’s Club. Schwarz has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize for his high profile articles on the epidemic of sports-related concussions.

Trauma induced disease from brain injuries have caused memory loss, dementia and suicides and Schwarz was instrumental in linking sports injuries to brain damage in athletes. Schwarz was on the math team at SHS and majored in math at the University of Pennsylvania. In fact before becoming a journalist he taught mathematics. Using his mathematical background, Schwarz gathered data and used his knowledge of probability to demonstrate the higher than normal incidence of brain damage in athletes.

In his fascinating talk he explains how he researched this story and documents the debilitation that these injuries can cause, including a video interview with pro-football players who can no longer remember playing. To interview players, Schwarz approached their wives as the “husbands lived the dreams and the wives lived the nightmares.”

But brain damage affects not just professional athletes. Schwarz explains how children, high school and college athletes frequently suffer concussions and continue to play, causing repeat injuries and even more serious ramifications.

Watch this important talk and learn what you can do to prevent brain injuries by clicking here.

Opening Day Scarsdale Little League:

Opening day ceremonies for Scarsdale Little League will be held on Saturday, April 9th starting at 8:30 at Crossways 3 field. Sports announcer Bruce Beck will emcee the event, and former Yankee great Graig Nettles will be on hand to throw out the first pitch courtesy of Last Licks. Scarsdale’s newly elected Mayor Miriam Flisser, will address the players.

Details: Category: The Goods; Published: 12 April 2011

circusasher Once the circus is in your blood, it seems it never goes away, and once you are part of a circus family, you never quite leave. Consider the folks of the Circus Arts Camp in Hartsdale (CAC): The three directors who started this camp more than twenty years ago and are responsible for its highly successful approach to training and curriculum, are themselves accomplished circus performers.

Chris Glover, Philippe Vercruyssen, and George Orosz have names like “Barnum & Bailey,” “Big Apple,” and “Cirque du Soleil” throughout their resumes, and they have performed all over the world. The professional teachers and coaches on their staff return summer after summer to lend their special talents in instructing kids as young as seven to juggle, tumble, walk the tightwire, ride a unicycle, spin plates, perambulate on stilts, twirl on a rope about twenty feet above the ground, somersault on a trampoline, shoot a fellow clown from a cannon, and a bunch of other activities that make “arts and crafts” sound like something from the Dark Ages of Summer Camp.

Contributing to the camp’s impressive ratio of one staff member for every five campers is an elite team of counselors-in-training who are also “oldtimers” despite their young years.

Tatiana Fischer at the age of 15 is looking forward to her ninth season of Circus Arts Camp. She knew it was the circuskaterina place for her from the very first day, and she credits the fun she’s had on the tightwire and static trapeze with honing the balance and timing she relies on in her daily training as a competitive synchronized skater. She doesn’t plan on making the circus her entire life—she wants to prepare for a career in the fashion industry after graduating from Soundview Preparatory—but the circus will always remain an important part of her growing up.

The same could be said for 17-year-old Katerina Barry, who also has eight years at Circus Arts Camp under her safety belt, and like Tatiana, has progressed from camper to counselor.

“I’ve always fit in perfectly here and thought from the beginning ‘this place is so cool’—different from anything else I’d ever done.”

As an aspiring teacher, Katerina voices enthusiasm for her summers now spent helping young children walk the wire or stay up on a pair of stilts, saying she hopes to “teach a new generation of kids” what she knows about circus skills.

Asher Novick has been part of the Circus Arts Camp family for so long he doesn’t remember the exact age he started attending. “I was really little and they were still in Purchase then,” he offers.

The camp began in 1989 on the SUNY campus in Purchase, but it has been calling the air-conditioned gyms of the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester in Hartsdale its home for several years now.

It is a convenient location for Asher since he is in his final year of high school at SSSW, and is bound for Cornell next August. Asher says his desire to pursue a degree in physics there grew out of his circus arts training and his special abilities in balancing.

circustatiana “I can balance pretty much anything—chairs, bicycles, tables.” At CAC he began analyzing the center of balance in the objects he supported, and wound up with the ability to balance a 6-foot ladder on his chin. “You can impress people with that,” he quips. Of the counselor role he has had at Circus Arts Camp these past few years, he says, “When you’re good at something, you pass it on to someone else.” The Cornell campus may be due for an uptick in the number of people who can balance a bicycle on their head.

Circus Arts Camp offers three 2-week sessions from June 27 through August 5, and each session ends with the campers’ Big Circus Show, an exciting two-hour performance for family and friends. The final week of the season is Aerial Arts Week, August 8 to 12, with instruction devoted just to aerial skills, including the Spanish web, lyra, trampoline, fabric, and even the flying trapeze. After-camp care is available for all sessions and lunch and snacks are included in the tuition.

You can find out more about the camp and get registration information at www.circusartscampny.com or call 914 923-4650. But if you are considering Circus Arts Camp this summer, be forewarned: It can be an addictive experience, and the skills last a lifetime.

Photo Captions:

(Top) Asher shows off his remarkable balancing skills at the Big Circus Show that ends every Circus Arts Camp session at Hartsdale’s Solomon Schechter School.

(Middle) As a counselor at Circus Arts Camp in Hartsdale, Katerina refines not just her circus skills but also her abilities as a teacher—the profession she plans to pursue in college.

(Bottom) Tatiana demonstrates her formidable balancing skills at the recent Go the Distance walkathon for Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital, where she and her fellow counselors helped youngsters walk the wire and master a diabolo.

Details: Category: The Goods; Published: 27 March 2011

baseball Every September, residents of Scarsdale and surrounding communities looked forward to Sports Swap, the annual event organized by the Scarsdale Council of Parent-Teacher Associations. Many people were disappointed not to see this event on this September’s calendar. Here’s the good news: Sports Swap is being held on Saturday, April 2 from 10am to noon in the Heathcote School gymnasium.

Sports Swap is a giant sale with great prices for sporting goods, computer equipment, video games, musical instruments, children’s sports and dress clothing and more. People in the community donate their gently used items and 100% of the proceeds from the sales go to support PT Council programs, events, speakers and special events. Long-time chair Maureen Hart and her new co-chair Nancy Aresu encourage everyone to clean out their closets, attics and garages! Donations of items to be sold will be accepted at the Heathcote gym on Friday, April 1 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm and Saturday, April 2 from 8:30am to 9:30 am.

For further information on donations or if you’re interested in volunteering for this event, please contact Maureen Hart at MMHart@optonline.net or Nancy Aresu at NancyAresu@gmail.com.