{"id":58954,"date":"2016-01-12T01:29:22","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T23:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoops.co.il\/?p=58954"},"modified":"2016-01-12T01:29:22","modified_gmt":"2016-01-11T23:29:22","slug":"%d7%a1%d7%a4%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%98-%d7%90%d7%99%d7%9c%d7%95%d7%a1%d7%98%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%99%d7%98%d7%93-%d7%94%d7%99%d7%9b%d7%9f-%d7%94%d7%9d-%d7%a2%d7%9b%d7%a9%d7%99%d7%95-%d7%93%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%95","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoops.co.il\/?p=58954","title":{"rendered":"\u05e1\u05e4\u05d5\u05e8\u05d8 \u05d0\u05d9\u05dc\u05d5\u05e1\u05d8\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05d8\u05d3: "\u05d4\u05d9\u05db\u05df \u05d4\u05dd \u05e2\u05db\u05e9\u05d9\u05d5 – \u05d3\u05d5\u05e8\u05d5\u05df \u05e9\u05e4\u05e8" (\u05e0\u05e4\u05dc\u05d0! \u05de.\u05dc)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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SI:Where are They Now: Former UConn star Doron Sheffer<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Here are They Now: Former UConn star Doron Sheffer<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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\nPhoto: Uriel Sinai for Sports Illustrated<\/strong>
\nundefined<\/strong>
\nby Jon Wertheim<\/strong>
\nTwitter Email<\/strong>
\nPosted: Tue Jul. 8, 2014 Updated: Thu Jul. 17, 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was 20 years ago that they were the starting backcourt in a three-guard lineup, pillars in triplicate of UConn\u2019s transformation into a college basketball powerhouse. Ray Allen was the silky two guard, equally capable of attacking the rim and unfurling what would become perhaps the truest jumper in all of basketball. Kevin Ollie was the human rash, all persistence and annoyance, a \u00adnatural-born \u00adleader whose \u00addefense and quietly firm presence prefigured his career in coaching. And Doron Shef\u00adfer was the playmaker who brought a symphony of skills to bear. In each of their three overlapping seasons, in the mid\u20111990s, the Huskies won the Big East title. They went 89\u201313 as the program continued to build momentum.<\/p>\n

Last April 7, the night of the NCAA champion\u00adship game in Dallas, the trio held a reunion of sorts. Ollie, of course, was on the UConn bench, having replaced Jim Calhoun as coach. That night he presided over the Huskies\u2019 victory over Kentucky and became one of the hottest coaching commodities in the country. Allen, on a rare day off from the NBA job he\u2019s held since 1996, had jetted to AT&T Stadium, taking a break from the Miami Heat, where he was helping the Heat try to win a third straight NBA title. As for Shef\u00adfer, well, he was there in spirit.<\/p>\n

Physically Sheffer was half a world away, at his mountainside home in northern Israel, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. He\u2019d woken up early that morning, as he always does, just as the game was tipping off. He was thrilled that Connecticut had reached the final, but he didn\u2019t want to break his routine. So instead of watching hoops on TV, he wrapped tefillin around his arms, placed a yarmulke on his head and walked around his property before going to pray and study Torah.
\nADVERTISING<\/p>\n

Though he sports a light beard, the 42\u2011year\u2011old Sheffer looks much as he did when he wore number 11 for the Huskies. At 6'\u20085" he weighs less than he did in college, and his brown hair shows little sign of graying or thinning. He lives with his wife, Talia, and four children on a moshav, a self-sustaining agricultural community near the half-court mark of the Kin\u00adneret region, an hour or so from the Mediterranean. He is close to his daughter from his first marriage and hasn\u2019t ruled out having more kids. (\u201cIn basketball, the sixth man is so important,\u201d he says. \u201cMaybe in life, too.\u201d) He eats almost exclusively organic foods.<\/p>\n

As for his occupation, he is a motivational speaker and life coach. Sheffer recently wrote a memoir titled Annani, which is Hebrew for The Answer.<\/p>\n

But those are just material details. Sheffer is on a spiritual quest that has taken him from gurus in Indian ashrams to shamans in the Amazon to holy men in the Middle East. He has attended religious ceremonies in South America, Australia and Costa Rica. As he puts it, \u201cI am going with my heart, flowing in the river of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheffer is an Orthodox Jew, but he resists \u00adlabels. His spirituality is self-styled; its source material is everything from the Torah to Buddhist teaching to astrology to a religious experience he says he had while watching Michael Jordan play at the United Center. Sheffer often speaks abstractly and in aphorisms, sounding like a cross between a wise and gentle rabbi and Tony Robbins. But he is not out to convert anyone, and he\u2019s the opposite of dogmatic.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me the goal and the key, the candle that shows me the way, is being a mensch, being a better person — more humble, more patient, more peaceful, more with myself, my wife, my neighbors,\u201d he says with an ever-present\u00ad smile. \u201cThat\u2019s, for me, being religious, being close to God.\u201d
\n*****
\nIf life is, as the mystics suggest, just a series of fortuitous and random events, Doron Shef\u00adfer expe\u00ad\u00adrienced a big one late in his adolescence. Raised in a secular home in suburban Tel Aviv\u2014his \u00adfather was a diamond dealer; his mother a \u00adlawyer — he fell hard for basketball. He quickly learned the necessary skill set. He had the physique and the native athleticism. But what really seduced him was the dynamic of hoops, the overlay of individual and team, of rigid preparation and free-flowing improvisation.<\/p>\n

In his late teens and early 20s, Shef\u00adfer served his mandatory stint in Israel\u2019s army (three years for single men), but he was able to moonlight as a basketball player in the Israeli league. At 21, after helping his team, Hapoel Galil Elyon, topple powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv, he decided to play college ball in the U.S. with the hope of advancing to the NBA. He ended up at UConn three seasons after another Israeli player, Nadav Henefeld, had thrived in Calhoun\u2019s system.<\/p>\n

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In Storrs, Sheffer adjusted quickly. (\u201cI\u2019m a Pisces,\u201d he says. \u201cPisces get to flow, find their way.\u201d) He roomed with Travis Knight, the team\u2019s center, but had a special kinship with Allen. The two would stretch each other out before practices, during which time they would have a sort of cultural exchange, swapping philosophies. \u201cYou could see something unique and positive in Ray, in the way he handled himself,\u201d recalls Sheffer.<\/p>\n

The affinity was mutual. \u201cDoron was so poised,\u201d says Allen. \u201cHe had a lot of control over his game and his life, and we learned from him.\u201d
\nThough Sheffer felt that he had to sublimate his game to fit into the team construct, he still dazzled, beating out Allen for Big East freshman of the year. \u201cRemember, he was a thoughtful guy to start with, and he was 21 as a freshman,\u201d says Calhoun. \u201cThere was such a maturity there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicknamed, inevitably, the Jewish Jordan, Sheffer became a star on two continents. Because of him, UConn games were some of the most popular sports programming in Israel. Sidney Frankel, a kosher butcher living in Waterbury, Conn., was conscripted to moonlight for the largest Israeli newspaper covering the Sheffer beat and attending every Huskies home game.<\/p>\n

At UConn, Sheffer wasn\u2019t particularly religious, but, Ollie says, he was regarded as the team\u2019s philosopher king. He told his teammates how different the Huskies faithful were from Israeli fans, who once spat on him during a game. \u201cI remember one [UConn] game after we lost and I played bad,\u201d he says. \u201cThe fans said, \u2018Great job, Doron.\u2019 Same intonation, same words. I said, \u2018Something doesn\u2019t sound right for me.\u2019 Then I understood that it was not from the heart. It was almost automatic. At that point I say, I miss Israel in the sense [that Israelis are] warm — sometimes too warm; they become violent — but [honest]. Life is balance. Life is the middle. For me, it was good to see both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

In three seasons at UConn in the mid-'90s, Sheffer eclipsed 1,300 points, 500 assists and 400 rebounds.
\nPhoto: Lou Capozzola for Sports Illustrated
\nIn three seasons at UConn in the mid-'90s, Sheffer eclipsed 1,300 points, 500 assists and 400 rebounds.
\nDuring his junior year Sheffer turned 24 and used up his eligibility. Still, he left as the first UConn player to have at least 1,300 points, 500 assists and 400 rebounds. (Shabazz \u00adNapier became the second, last season.) In the 1996 NBA draft, Allen was picked fifth by the Timber\u00adwolves. Shef\u00adfer was selected early in the second round by the Clippers.<\/p>\n

Back in the motherland, there was great hope that Sheffer would become the first Israeli in the NBA. He recalls hearing the broadcaster Al McGuire once say in an interview, This young man will be an NBA ballplayer, if he decides to. \u201c\u2008\u2018Decides to\u2019 was the key,\u201d says Sheffer. \u201cI didn\u2019t make all the effort.\u201d He showed up at Clippers camp; bristled when he was yelled at by the team\u2019s cantankerous coach, Bill Fitch; and hightailed it home, signing with Maccabi. \u00ad(Israelis would have to wait until Omri Casspi in 2009 to have a homegrown NBA player.) \u201c[Doron] was a player I thought would play 10 years in the NBA,\u201d says Allen. \u201cHe was that talented.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Instead Sheffer was the best player in the Israeli league, leading Maccabi to four straight championships. And then he was gone. At age 28 — at the peak of his powers, in the middle of a seven-figure contract, against the advice of everyone, including his father — he quit. \u201cI felt my soul was wanting to spread wings and fly,\u201d he says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t do it with basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

He traveled the world. He read. He studied. He had a spiritual awakening. There was no single epiphany. Sheffer puts it like this: \u201cIt\u2019s like somebody who tries to stop smoking. He tries for years and years. He goes to treatment, stops for three months, then comes back. Then one day, poof! it\u2019s no longer there. But before, there\u2019s 20 years of trying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Judaism? Sheffer says, \u201cOne of my rabbis said it\u2019s like driving a car. If you take a car that drives on 95 [octane], it will drive on diesel, but not as good. If you put in 95 and it is exactly what it needs, it will drive better. There\u2019s a lot of wisdom in all religions, with things I still can use in my life. But as soon as I got to the Torah in Israel, in my language, I came back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was also during that time that Sheffer was diagnosed with testicular cancer. His spirituality helped immediately. \u201cI wasn\u2019t being sad, angry or miserable,\u201d he says. Instead, he thought, How can I turn it into a gift? He changed his diet and began reading about Eastern medicine. The cancer, fortunately, hadn\u2019t spread, and he underwent surgery.<\/p>\n

Once healthy, he decided to play basket\u00adball again. To call it a comeback would be to shortchange the experience. \u201cIt was the same ball, same court, same coaches, same players, but a totally new game,\u201d Sheffer says. \u201cI could see it in a much more healthy, balanced way. Much less pressure and tension. I could also play much more freely.\u201d And he did. Playing for a team in Jerusalem, he took to shooting free throws with his eyes closed and attempting passes and shots that defied both physics and conventional wisdom. \u201cI was still trying to win,\u201d he says, \u201cbut not getting lost running after the victory, being slave to the score.
\nAfter switching to a team in Tel Aviv, Sheffer retired again in 2005. He returned a year later and played until \u201908. Upon his final retirement he settled in the mountain village of Amirim. His property is dense with cherry and olive trees and walking paths where he tries to spend an hour a day alone with his thoughts. When he\u2019s not giving motivational speeches to large audiences, he and Talia run a business hosting guests at their home for \u201cspiritual cleansings.\u201d<\/p>\n

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(\u05d3\u05d5\u05e8\u05d5\u05df \u05d1\u05d1\u05d9\u05ea\u05d5, \u05d1-RETREAT \u05e2\u05dc \u05de\u05d4\u05d5\u05ea \u05d4\u05d7\u05d9\u05d9\u05dd, \u05d4\u05e0\u05e9\u05de\u05d4, \u05d5\u05d4\u05d0\u05de\u05ea)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though a million spiritual miles from big-time college sports, Sheffer remains a proud citizen of Husky Nation. He rejoiced in UConn\u2019ssuccess last season and is still in touch with his former teammates as well as Calhoun, who makes frequent trips to Israel. And Sheffer still evokes warm feelings among the Huskies who played alongside him. After a series of arranged interviews with Allen fell through because of the Heat\u2019s changing playoff schedule, Allen took matters into his own hands. He riffed about Sheffer into his phone and emailed the audio file. \u201cHonestly,\u201d said Allen, \u201ca lot of who I am came from being around him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man who was perhaps the best basketball player in the history of Israel doesn\u2019t play much anymore. But after we spoke on his porch for a few hours this spring, he and I shot jumpers in his driveway. His goal lacks a backboard; it\u2019s simply a rim and net affixed to a pole. No matter, he stroked shot after shot, at one point getting in the zone and swishing 15 straight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is who I was,\u201d he said with a smile.<\/p>\n

Even the most rational and skeptical among us have to figure there\u2019s deeper meaning in there.<\/p>\n

PROMOTED STORI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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