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November 21, 2003/Cheshvan 26 5764, Vol. 56, No. 9
Hoop hoopla
LEISAH NAMM
Managing Editor
Irwin Kanefsky, chairman of the VOSJCC board of directors, right, congratulates Harvey Lasner on his 19 years of dedication to the JCC basketball league.
Photo by Harriet Colan
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After 19 years of playing in a basketball league for the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Phoenix, Harvey Lasner retired from basketball in 1989.
After his retirement, the JCC - its name was changed to the Valley of the Sun JCC in 1993 - recognized Lasner's contribution to the league by displaying a banner with his name and jersey number - 54 - at its old location on Maryland Avenue in Phoenix.
After the center moved from that location in 1996, the VOSJCC stored the banner in a warehouse, where it suffered water damage.
On Oct. 31 of this year, the VOSJCC held a small ceremony for Lasner at its new Scottsdale location, and hung a new banner - with his name and jersey number - in the first-floor lounge area north of the basketball court.
"I was very, very honored and I felt very good about it," Lasner says.
Lasner's connection to the Jewish community center movement began during his childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he spent a lot of time at the city's JCC.
The JCC has been "a very big part of my life, my wife's life and my children's lives," he says.
In 1955, when he was stationed at a military test station in Yuma, he and three of his fellow soldiers were set up on a group blind date with four girls in Phoenix. The four couples hung out at the JCC, when it was on Camelback Road in Phoenix. His date eventually became his wife.
Lasner and wife Saralyn moved to Phoenix 33 years ago.
"When we moved here, before we even belonged to a synagogue, we belonged to the center," Lasner says. The couple now belongs to Beth El Congregation.
"When we first moved here, everyone hung out at the JCC on Maryland," he says. "No one built pools then. When people started building pools, they started to stay home."
The JCC "was the place to go, especially on the weekend and the evenings," he remembers. "Those years, our children were young and everyone else's children were young so it was a great place to be."
In the 1970s, Lasner was on the JCC board; now he and his wife are members. Their son, Bart, lives in Tucson.
Although Lasner no longer plays basketball, he says he still enjoys watching it.
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