Posted: Aug. 17, 2009

Agile, tall (6 feet 4 inches) and athletic, Nicolet basketball center Alex Cohen should be able to write her own ticket in a year or two as far as an athletic scholarship is concerned.

But all the adventures that she'll have on that presumably interesting journey will be hard-pressed to match the thrills she recently earned representing her religion and her country when the American Junior Girls team won the gold medal in the 18th Annual Maccabiah Games in Israel.

"I really learned a lot about my religion (the Jewish faith) and about where I come from and about myself," she said. "It was three weeks that I'll never forget."

Cohen, who will be a junior this fall at Nicolet, earned a spot at the "Jewish Olympics" by competing in a series of high-level tryouts in Long Island, N.Y., last September. There were more than 100 athletes at those tryouts as well as at another equally large session in California.

"I was just trying to make the team," she said. "I didn't realize that it would turn out like this."

The Maccabiah Games are celebrated every four years and attract the top Jewish athletes in the world. It is considered the third-largest sporting event in the world behind the Summer Olympics and the World Cup Soccer tournament.

This year, the American delegation consisted of 900-plus athletes from 36 states. Overall, there were more than 7,300 athletes from 60-plus countries competing in more than 25 sports.

The team spent a week in New York, before leaving for Israel, just getting to know each other and taking part in preliminary workouts.

"We got a chance to discover what our games were like and how well we could get along," she said. "It's sometimes hard for 12 high school girls (from all over the country) to get along sometimes, but I think we did a pretty good job."

Security was tight

All told, Cohen and the team spent three weeks in Israel, a Middle East democracy amid a sea of less-than-Democratic theocracies and kingdoms.

With that in mind and with high security a given, the more laidback Americans got an intense, four-day whirlwind tour of the country in the week before the games started in July. They visited such holy and historical sites such as the Western Wall, the Dead Sea, Yad Vashem, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a Bedouin village and Masada. They also spent a day at a military base learning about the lives of young soldiers (all Israeli young adults must serve three years in the military after high school).

"We were a little uncomfortable at times, but we felt pretty safe though," Alex said.

Her father, Rob, noted that officials of the games were very careful with the junior girls (ages 15-18) team because there were no parents along. "They had all kinds of security for them," he said. "Though the open teams (young adults) had the run of the place."

Competition was held on three levels: junior, open and masters.

The games themselves were quite an experience, Alex noted. Olympic swimmer Jason Lezak was given the honor of lighting the ceremonial torch at the opening ceremony at Ramat Gan Stadium (near Tel Aviv).. Lezak had the epic anchor leg to lead the American 400-meter freestyle swim relay to an amazing come-from-behind victory at the Beijing Olympics last summer - one of Michael Phelps' record-setting eight gold medals. Nicolet graduate Garrett Weber-Gale was also on that relay.

Two of three hoops teams take gold

There were only five teams in the junior girls basketball competition. There was a round robin tournament with the top two surviving teams playing for the gold medal. The Americans beat the host Israelis for the gold. Cohen, much to her amazement, was the starting center. A pleasurable aspect for Cohen was that the coaching staff urged an up-tempo, fast-break style of play, similar to Nicolet's style.

But there were adjustments to be made. They had to get used to full international rules with a smaller and lighter ball and a wider lane.

A fun side note was that Cohen was able to make friends with the center from the English team, virtually the only other girl in the tournament who could look her in the eye.

"The competition was very good," Alex said. "The Israelis had girls who already had international experience."

Which helped make the gold medal ceremony all the more meaningful, she said. Two of the three American women's basketball teams won golds in their respective divisions.

In short, it was a heady step up in the world for someone who just turned 16 and whose biggest claim to basketball fame beforehand had been helping the Nicolet team rally in the last third of the season last winter for a share of the North Shore Conference title.

"The whole time I was in Israel, I was in a state of awe," she said. "The games themselves were terrific, but that was only part of it. It was such an incredible cultural experience, getting to know other athletes from around the world."

"I would do this again in a heartbeat. The memories and friendships I made will last for the rest of my life."