USTA Honors Irving Levine with Annual Seniors' Service Award
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Senior Tennis 2013 – 1 Volume Six • Number Seventeen • Spring • 2013 THE NEW ENGLAND SENIOR TENNIS FOUNDATION BULLETIN USTA Honors Irving Levine with Annual Seniors’ Service Award The United States Tennis Association (USTA) presented to Irving Levine of Rehoboth, Mass., its Seniors’ Service Award. Levine was recognized for his outstanding dedication and contribution in helping grow tennis at the local level. He was honored at the USTA Annual Meeting on March 17 in Weston, Fla. The Seniors’ Service Award was established in 1958 to recognize and honor a person for service to senior tennis. It is given annually to the person deemed most deserving of the respect and honor of all seniors and is awarded on the basis of the recipient’s willingness, cooperation and participation, either in play or organization- al work, for the betterment and furtherance of senior competition. Levine began playing tennis when he was 13 years old and has continued to be heavily involved in the sport at age 90. He still plays many tournaments annually and remains an icon in the sporting community of Re- hoboth. Levine and his wife, Bernice, have been an inspiration to their local community. In 1996, they founded the New England Senior Tennis Foundation (NESTF), an organization committed to promoting and supporting tennis among New England seniors. Levine has donated approximately $20,000 annually toward the effort and has been an active leader of the foundation, serving as a member of its board of directors. The NESTF provides year-round opportunities for seniors to play, including an international annual tournament called the Friendship Cup, which has been held for more than 40 years and features competition between teams from USTA New Eng- land and Canada. “Irving truly embod- ies what it means to be an advocate for our sport. He is a true inspiration, and thanks to his efforts on and off the court, hundreds of senior players have been able to enjoy the game,” said Kurt Kamperman, Chief Ex- ecutive, Community Tennis, USTA. “We are proud to recognize him for all that he has given to senior tennis in his community.” L - R: Andrew Wong from Hawaii, a member of the selection committee; Cliff Drysdale, a friend of Irv’s since 1972, and a 2013 inductee to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. 2 – Senior Tennis 2013 New England Senior Tennis Foundation, Inc. An organization established by Bernice and Irving Levine for the general purpose of promoting tennis among senior adults in New England. Administration Board Peter Allen, President Irving Levine Rich Heath, Treasurer Wade Frame Dorcas Miller, Secretary Amy Read George Ulrich Carol Redden Ken Miller Jeanne Hulsen Bats Wheeler To facilitate the promotion of senior tennis, the following strategies will be implemented: 1. To provide instruction for seniors interested in learning how to play the sport or improve their skills; 2. To support the publication of material to help seniors learn how to play the game, improve their skills and knowledge of the game, and un- derstand the latest health research information relating to the sport of tennis; 3. To distribute a newsletter on a regular basis that freely discusses issues in the sport of ten- nis and at the same time reports the results of tournaments and other competitions and news Irv Levine in Action of interest to seniors; 4. To run tournaments and other compe- titions for seniors innovatively and in such a way as to help participants fully enjoy the sport; Senior Tennis Newsletter editor 5. To develop and support interstate, inter- Dick Ernst of Cranston, R.I. The sectional and international competitions for Barrington High School boys seniors; tennis coach and a ranking 6. To respond to changing needs and interests of senior tennis players; senior circuit player. 7. To recognize and respond to opportunities to provide leadership within a larger context for the development of tennis (i.e., to support or oppose actions by tennis groups that either further or diminish the growth and support of the sport); 8. To provide where possible and to support Send stories, pictures and articles to: facilities for senior players at either a reduced Dick Ernst rate or at no cost to them; 71 Philmont Ave., Cranston, RI 02910 9. To create and support a governance struc- 401-785-0532; or [email protected] ture that ensures continuity to the Foundation Advertising in this publication is available at and support for its goals and strategies. 1 $500/page and $300/ /2 page. N.E.S.T.F. website www.neseniortennis.org Senior Tennis 2013 – 3 Editor’s Corner... with Dick Ernst At 77, Lazar Lowinger still recruits and trains for Maccabiah Games By Dick Ernst If Lazar (Larry) Lowinger makes the US team for the 19th Maccabiah Games, he hopes the grand masters tennis division is played on the games’ five new red clay courts. The 77-year-old Newton resident had a total knee replacement in early February after bouts with ar- thritis. The softer courts are easier on the legs. But if the Maccabiah World Union, the games’ organizer, says no, Lowinger will maintain his training regimen and book his flight to Jerusalem. He’ll still play. “Of course,” he said. “We’re going to play like the youngsters play. I’m counting down the days to the 2013 Maccabiah.” Trials for Lowinger’s 65+ tennis division will take place in fall. Maccabi USA (the American spelling is different) hopes to send more than 1,000 Jewish athletes to Israel to compete in 35 sports according to Jed Margolis, the executive director. Lowinger is one of more than 300 board members, “mavens” of their sports, who scout for athletes through national sports associations and the JCC Maccabi Games. Because of their efforts, Margolis expects tryouts to draw 3,000. “We have people on the board who are out there all the time, looking for Jewish names, talking it up and running receptions in their homes,” Margolis said. “It’s a matter of education – letting people know what the games are.” Lowinger attends tennis tournaments wearing a Maccabiah or Israeli Tennis Centers shirt and makes a point of introducing himself to Jewish players. He sees the games as a way to bolster Americans’ pride in their Jewish identity. Among his recruits is Ben Soloway of Weston, who won a silver medal in the singles at the Pan American Maccabi Games in Brazil last year. Soloway, 16, is now applying for the 19th Maccabiah. “You bring new players in, you bring in kids like Ben Soloway, you’re preparing the ground for the future leaders of Maccabi USA,” Lowinger said. Soloway said he had seen Lowinger wearing his Maccabiah Games shirts around the Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman Tennis Center in Weston, where both are members. Lowinger would praise Soloway’s strokes during practice, he said. Soloway said the atmosphere at the Pan American games was different from that of other tennis tourneys. “Everyone was on your side,” he said. “It makes you feel like you’re special.” He said that at other tourneys, he tends to avoid talking to the competition. But in Bra- zil, after defeating his first opponent, a Ven- ezuelan, the two became friends. Lowinger said sports have helped him de- velop mentally and physically throughout his life. Lowinger was born in 1933 in Belgium to Lazar Lowinger surrounded by cheerleaders at the 2005 Mac- parents who had met and married in Cuba. cabiah Games in Israel, where he won a silver medal in doubles His father was originally from Romania and play. Continued on page 4 4 – Senior Tennis 2013 Continued from page 3 (Editor's Corner) his mother from the Ukraine. The family spent the war years in Romania and then moved to Cuba. Growing up, he saw gentiles participate in athletics, but was consistently excluded, he said. “How does it feel to get kicked in the rear end and told, ‘Get the hell out of here, you Jew?’ he said. “As a child of eight years old, it feels pretty bad.” He first set foot on a playing field after World War II in Bucharest. With a team of other Jewish youth, Lowinger played a gentile public school in soccer. “It was a feeling of rebirth,” he said. “Like you’re born again, and you live in a new, free world.” The team – playing its first game with a real soccer ball instead of one made of stockings – beat its seasoned opponents. Lowinger didn’t pick up a tennis racket until he moved to Cuba when he was invited to hit some balls with a friend of his father’s. “I said, ‘Are you kidding me? This is not male, this is not a macho game,” Lowinger recalled saying. But he was persuaded to give it a try. Thanks to strokes he had perfected playing ping-pong, he amazed his partner and fell in love with the sport. “I got bitten by it,” Lowinger said. “I got bitten to the point where I lived to play tennis, especially to help Jewish kids get into the game and to participate.” After his family moved to the United States in 1954, Lowinger became a lawyer in 1964. A Newton resident since 1967, he considered himself Massachusetts’ first Hispanic lawyer and still practices, pri- marily representing immigrants. Lowinger’s two sons do not play tennis – one enjoyed lacrosse, one baseball. “I always dreamt to play father and son with my boys” he said. “But if they weren’t into it, they weren’t into it.” Though he played in social and competitive-area tennis tournaments, he did not try out for the Mac- cabiah Games until 1987.