Principal of NYHS Deirdre Schreiber remembers how Ari Grashin would cheer her on at all the girls games.
“I remember him recognizing something that I did in the game and mentioning it to me,” said Schreiber. “As a freshman girl, that was a very encouraging, confidence boosting experience from him and that was really meaningful for me.”
Grashin was enrolled at NYHS in 2002 and got diagnosed with brain cancer in the beginning of the 2003 school year. He passed away on Sukkot the next year.
Ari Grashin’s legacy lives on with the match that happened on March 22 at the Seattle Hebrew Academy court. Grashin was very involved in Torah and Judaism in general, but one of his biggest hobbies was basketball. Grashin’s memory is commemorated with this tournament every year and has been a long-standing tradition for 24 years now.
“He loved sports, and this is a way to honor that part of his personality,” said Steve Bunin, the Athletic Director and boys basketball coach, who coached Grashin back in the day.
This year, the annual Ari Grashin Basketball game was the same week as the whole school Shabbaton.
“[Students at the Shabbaton] can design the experience in a way that has depth of meaning and that resonates for them,” said Schreiber. “We felt that, the Shabbaton, the whole crux of what we do in that moment is to build community,” said Schreiber.
At the Shabbaton Coach Bunin spoke about Grashin’s legacy in basketball and who he was as a person, how he always looked up to the underdog and dressed kind of crazy. Bunin spoke about all the people that visited Grashin and his faith even in the last moments of his life.
“He was definitely one of the cool kids,” said Bunin, “but he would always put his arm around the kids who were outcasts or not quite as popular.”
The game is broken into three sections: the JV boys against their dads, a scrimmage for SHA, and finally varsity vs. NYHS alumni.
“We’re gonna destroy them,” said sophomore Jonah Negrin before the game. “Our team is a lot better than them, a lot more skilled [than our dads].”
The JV team beat the dads 21 to 11 and the varsity team lost.
