Tennis is his racquet

Getting to know Marty Gilbert.

By MAXINE LIPTZEN DOROT
Marty Gilbert draws from a lifetime of experience to instruct athletes to compete and excel in the Paralympic Games (photo credit: Courtesy)
Marty Gilbert draws from a lifetime of experience to instruct athletes to compete and excel in the Paralympic Games
(photo credit: Courtesy)
One summer day in 1976, Marty Gilbert, the summer tennis pro in a Jewish country club in Philadelphia, was approached by Harold Landesberg, one of the five founders of the ITC, the Israel Tennis Center. Landesberg was visiting tennis clubs around the country to raise funds for their flagship center in Ramat Hasharon. This meeting changed the course of Gilbert’s life forever.
Landesberg asked Gilbert to consider a four-month trip to Israel to train a group of volunteer college players who would be coaches in Ramat Hasharon for the summer. The offer came out of the blue at the time when Gilbert was the tennis coach at Haverford College outside Philadelphia along with his summer job at the club. Going to Israel was the furthest thing from his mind.
Tennis came to Gilbert at a very early age. His mother was an avid player and often took her young son with her to the courts and, as a result, he was bitten by the tennis bug at age four. At about 11 years of age, he started to take the game seriously. Summers in Atlantic City allowed him to play frequently with his mother’s adult friends, and before he was in his teens he won the Atlantic City Open, beating adult competitors. Later, Gilbert was on his high-school tennis team in Lower Merion High, and at one point, his team enjoyed the longest winning streak of any high school in the entire US. In his senior year, he was accepted to Temple University and was offered a tennis scholarship. His father turned the grant down, saying that it should go to someone who needed the financial help more, and it did.
In his junior year in Temple, Gilbert became captain of the tennis team and went on, in singles matches, to win 33 of them over three years, losing only one match. A history major, his plan was to teach in Philadelphia’s inner city high schools, which he did for four years, and then moved over to a physical education position for another two. During his teaching career, he continued to play tennis and was ranked in the top 10 of the Men’s Middle States Tennis Association.
In 1967, Gilbert met his future wife, Rocky, and they soon got married. With a growing family, he left teaching for a full-time coaching job in tennis and part-time basketball coach in Haverford College. The tennis team, under his leadership, ranked No. 5 in Division 3 (small colleges) in the entire country.
Having made the deal to coach in Ramat Hasharon the previous summer, Gilbert, his wife and their three-year old son, Scott, made their first trip to Israel in May 1977. At the end of four months, as agreed, the family returned to Philadelphia and Gilbert was back coaching in Haverford.
A second son, Jason, was born, and then, out of the blue, Gilbert got a phone call from Dr. Ian Froman, the CEO, South African dentist and main founder of the ITC. He asked Gilbert to consider coming to Ashkelon and taking on duties as head of the coaching staff of the soon-to-open Ashkelon Center. The timing was right; Gilbert had been in Haverford for 10 years, but that Ramat Hasharon summer trip to Israel was never out of the Gilberts’ thoughts. That trip had made him feel like a pioneer on the cusp of revolutionizing tennis in Israel. The Gilberts jumped at the offer after fulfilling contractual obligations in Haverford.
Not long after settling into the Ashkelon Absorption Center and anxious to see the Ashkelon courts, Gilbert had a cab take them to the tennis center.
The driver didn’t know what Gilbert was talking about but after a while took him to a meter-high wall with a sign that said, “On this site the Ashkelon Tennis Center will be built.”
Taking the initiative, and with very little Hebrew at his command, the very next day Gilbert went around to local schools with racquets and tennis nets in hand, trying to turn kids on to tennis, a sport that few people had any knowledge about, especially in a soccer-driven town.
The grand opening of the Ashkelon Tennis Center with Gilbert as head coach was in summer of 1981. The center was an enormous success, energizing Ashkelon and bringing kids together from all social backgrounds to what was for them a new and exciting sport. The center was packed with more than 500 kids, many of them very new immigrants from Ethiopia who had never even seen a tennis ball in their lives. There was no fee and all the kids were given free bus transportation to the center, making it easy and safe to get them there and then home.
This was a novelty back in those days.
Due to his wife’s family obligations, the family reluctantly returned to Philadelphia in 1983. They stayed there for four years and then returned to Israel after a phone call asking Gilbert to take over the Jaffa Tennis Center. Fortunately, he was able to agree, and he became manager and head coach of the second largest ITC. His family was happy to return and his son Scott went into the army, serving in the prestigious Givati unit. Jason was still in high school.
Many students of Gilbert’s coaching in Israel have been very successful and have played not only in international matches, but on Israel’s Davis Cup teams (Amir Weinberg played in the recent Davis Cup match against Sweden that Israel won 3-0; Amit Haddad, Eyal Erlich and Shahar Pe’er who peaked at World #14 ranking and played in Wimbledon).
Family obligations necessitated a return to Philadelphia once again, during which time Gilbert coached the Philadelphia University tennis team, but the longing for Israel remained. The Gilberts stayed in Philadelphia for 14 years and retired from their jobs with the thought of returning to Israel, an idea that had always been in their minds. The family returned to Ashkelon and Jason, even though he was 24 and easily able to get a military deferment, insisted on going into the army.
Back in Ashkelon where it all began, once again another phone call came.
“Would you be interested in being the head coach of the national Israeli wheelchair tennis team?” Kobi Weiner, former coach and board member of the Ilan Sports Center for the Disabled, was on the other end.
Gilbert knew nothing about this area of tennis and, although very tempted, turned down the offer. Weiner persisted, and after several more phone calls, he finally agreed.
It is the major goal of every athlete and coach to get to the Olympics, the pinnacle of success, and Gilbert’s aim was the same with his new team. To be invited to the Paralympics, one has to be ranked among the top 12 players in the world, and Gilbert had one player on this elite list – Shraga Weinberg, the flagbearer of the team at this summer’s Rio Games, who is has brittle bone disease. Any fall could cause his bones to shatter.
The players use specially adapted sports wheelchairs paid for by the government, the state lottery and private donations, which also cover trip expenses. This past year, Gilbert took his team to tournaments in Japan, South Africa, Sardinia, Poland, Prague, Lithuania, Great Britain, Turkey and France. In 2014, Gilbert had the honor of being inducted into the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame but couldn’t attend because he was with his World Cup team in Antalya, Turkey. His wife proudly accepted the award on his behalf.
In the 2016 Paralympic Games played in Rio, Gilbert’s doubles players Shraga Weinberg and Itay Erenlib narrowly lost a bronze medal match to Great Britain by two points in a grueling 4.5-hour marathon played in 30º heat. Gilbert muses, “Handicapped people playing tennis for 4.5 hours. It’s not just sitting in a wheelchair burning hot from the metal on its frame, but also generating the wheelchairs’ movements while racing all over the court. On the whole, be it the Paralympics, open, or friendly matches, for me it is mind-boggling to watch my players in action. I am in total awe of their ability, determination, steadfastness and bravery. I’ve been involved in all aspects of tennis, but coaching these courageous athletes gives me a satisfaction I’ve rarely received in any other sporting venture.
“When I took this job four years ago, my aim was to get the team to Rio, and this, along with introducing tennis to hundreds of kids in Israel, has been one of my biggest and proudest tennis accomplishments.
Frankly, I didn’t expect to be getting this gratification from tennis at age 71; I covet the experiences and memories I garnered these past four years and if I retired tomorrow, these would be the icing on the cake.”