Players with a passport: three Yalies qualify for Israeli tourney

The phrase "Jewish basketball player" is not an oxymoron, as three men on Yale's hoops squad proved this summer. Three Eli stars, forwards Matt Minoff, BR '04, Justin Simon, CC '04, and Paul Vitelli, MC '04, were named to the United States squad for the Maccabiah Games, an Olympic-style competition in Israel for Jewish athletes from all over the world. There were more Yale players named to the team than players from any other university.

COURTESY SPORTS PUBLICITY Matt Minoff, BR '04, is a spark off the bench for his school and country.

The talented triumvirate joined the world's tallest Jew, 7'3" Eric Gingold, former NCAA assist leader Doug Gottlieb, and Towson State's Tamir "the Jewish Jordan" Goodman, as players originally selected to the squad after a three-day-long tryout earlier in the year.

All three players contributed to the Bulldogs' successful 2000-01 campaign, a season that saw the team in contention for the Ivy title until its last weekend. Simon saw action in 12 of the Bulldogs' 27 games, averaging 1.4 points per game. Vitelli added depth at both forward positions, providing a consistent 5.7 points per game. As a rookie in 2001, Minoff was second on the team in assists and blocks, combining the finesse of a guard and the power of a big man.

But Vitelli and Simon, along with several other players, elected not to play in the competition due to the tenuous political situation in the Middle East. "I was overjoyed when I made the team, but it's unsafe over there and I decided not to go," Vitelli said. "We each had our own opinions about it."

Minoff, the U.S. team's sixth man, saw the situation differently: "I went because I talked to a lot of people who had done it before and they said I couldn't pass it up," he said. "I also talked to people who had been there over the past couple of months, and they said I didn't have too much to worry about." The U.S. eventually won the championship, defeating Israel 82-71 in the finals.

—Aaron Lichtig

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