2008 Woodie Awards
"From the Bleacher Seats"
Cover Your Head, Then Your Man
Raanan Lefkovitz
Issue date: 12/27/04 Section: Sports
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Here is a delicate topic, but nonetheless too noticeable to not address. A preponderance of Yeshiva Macs basketball players are not wearing kippot on the court. Only one from the starting five, Rafi Halpert, boats a beanie. Factor in the team members who don't start but still get substantial playing time, and we're left still with one lone player. Three other Macs ballers come to games donning the velvet and suede, but they're the team's bench warmers. Both coaches wear yarmulkes.
It's difficult to render the theistic complexities in a situation where a university that strives to advance the values and knowledge of Torah through its students is being athletically represented by students who don't display the most recognizable symbol of Jewish identity. More difficult, some of these athletes don't wear kippot off the court as well.
We've all called into question the charge that it's acceptable to remove your yarmulke for basketball because it conflicts with the physical demands of the game. However, at a time when sweatbands are the latest NBA vogue, you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that it really serves that much of an obstruction; so the choice is not between throwing off your yarmulke and throwing off your game. But if a player prefers to take a lay-up without a layer on his head, should he be forced, as an athlete of Yeshiva University, to put on a yarmulke anyway?
Students in the stands at recent Macs basketball games expressed unsettlement to see so many players without proper head covering. However, while some told me that they would like to see more kippot during games, others shrugged the whole thing off as insignificant. Nobody suggested that a rule should be imposed.
My first observation after speaking to students was that many of those whm communicated a desire to see more kippot also could not really name anybody on the basketball team. Perhaps the drive to see more kippot stems not from a religious persuasion, but from a lack of camaraderie between fans and players, a feeling that could be enhanced if more Macs' heads mirrored those of the fans cheering for them.
It's difficult to render the theistic complexities in a situation where a university that strives to advance the values and knowledge of Torah through its students is being athletically represented by students who don't display the most recognizable symbol of Jewish identity. More difficult, some of these athletes don't wear kippot off the court as well.
We've all called into question the charge that it's acceptable to remove your yarmulke for basketball because it conflicts with the physical demands of the game. However, at a time when sweatbands are the latest NBA vogue, you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that it really serves that much of an obstruction; so the choice is not between throwing off your yarmulke and throwing off your game. But if a player prefers to take a lay-up without a layer on his head, should he be forced, as an athlete of Yeshiva University, to put on a yarmulke anyway?
Students in the stands at recent Macs basketball games expressed unsettlement to see so many players without proper head covering. However, while some told me that they would like to see more kippot during games, others shrugged the whole thing off as insignificant. Nobody suggested that a rule should be imposed.
My first observation after speaking to students was that many of those whm communicated a desire to see more kippot also could not really name anybody on the basketball team. Perhaps the drive to see more kippot stems not from a religious persuasion, but from a lack of camaraderie between fans and players, a feeling that could be enhanced if more Macs' heads mirrored those of the fans cheering for them.