Lead, Educate, and Disseminate Women‘s Basketball His-Herstory

I served as the captain of the Israeli National Team, leading the team to international achievements, including qualification to the European Championship Finals in 1991. I played as a foreign player in Clermont-Ferrand (1980) in France for two seasons, and in Racing-Paris (1991). I also won the French Championship in 1980.

In Israel, with my team Elitzur Tel Aviv-Holon, I won 16 state championships and 14 state cups – one as a coach. In 1990, I won the title Basketballer of the Decade by the Basketball Association. In 2006 I set a Guinness World Record – 136 points scored in one league game.

I have 29 years of experience in basketball coaching – from children to adults. In the years 1981-1983, I established the Basketball School at Hapoel Jerusalem, as well as trained young talents in training camps at the Wingate Institute. Upon my retirement from professional competition in 1994, I turned to coaching teams at the achievement level. I coached the Cadet team and the Reserves team of Israel, and later coached four women`s teams in the Premier League: ASA Jerusalem, Hapoel Galil Elyon, Elitzur Holon and Elitzur Ramla.

Among my many other leadership projects, I worked in the Jerusalem Municipality as director of recreational games and society, managed and coached private sports and basketball classes for special and diverse populations, and produced mass sporting events. I initiated and implemented the Women`s Basketball Mobile project (2008) that operated for years in schools on behalf of the Basketball Association and the Council for the Advancement of Women`s Sports. I also initiated and built the My Basketball website and founded the project Hall of Fame – Women`s Basketball in Israel.

In addition to my professional, entrepreneurial and management achievements, I have been developing basketball pedagogy. I hold an honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2018) for being an entrepreneur and visionary. As part of my pedagogical work, I have published two books: Basketball in the Color Zone (2007), co-authored with Moshe Rosenberg, and Basketball – Games and Movements (2017). During Covid-19, which posed a great deal of challenges for teaching the practical subject of basketball, I developed and taught a remote basketball teaching program.

In this presentation I discuss my career as a basketball player, coach, lecturer and entrepreneur in making the game of basketball popular and accessible to a wide range of ages and circles in Israel in diverse circumstances, including remote teaching.