Faith Comes First for This Player

The girl in the white convertible was calling his name.

“Dov! Hey, Dov ! You’re coming to Timmerie’s tonight, right? We’re having a ‘90210’ party! You got to come, OK? Don’t say no!”

Dov Herbstman, sitting on a bench at an Irvine shopping mall, nodded and waved. A moment earlier, the University High quarterback was trying to put into words his feelings about faith, religion and his deep devotion to God. Now he was being invited to celebrate the existence of Brenda, Brandon, Dylan and Donna, those fictional friends from Beverly Hills High.

“OK,” Herbstman said. “I’ll be there.”

The convertible sped away. Herbstman, a senior, shook his head and smiled. To think, there were days when he thought he might never fit in.

Religion isn’t typically a hot topic among Orange County teens. High school students don’t generally gather at the frozen yogurt shop to discuss the existence of God. The mall is, more often than not, their Mecca.

Herbstman, a devout Jew, knows this all too well. The point became clear five years ago when he transferred from a small Hebrew academy in Westminster to a public junior high school in Irvine. Expressing one’s faith, he learned, wasn’t exactly fashionable. Once you did, the questions never stopped.

You’re missing school tomorrow, his classmates would ask. Why’s that? How come you always get out of school so much? A Jewish holiday? What’s a Jewish holiday? Do you get presents? Do you get money? What? You have to go to the temple all day and pray? What kind of holiday is that?

The questions aren’t all that bothersome, Herbstman says, even though they continue to this day. The other morning, a classmate asked Herbstman how much money he had made off his bar mitzvah.

Herbstman might have wanted to tell the boy how it wasn’t the gifts of money that made his coming-of-age ceremony special, it was the rich traditions, the symbolism, the pronouncement that he was now a man. On that day, he confessed his sins to his parents, meaning he was now accountable for his deeds. Suddenly, he was an adult in God’s eyes.

Those are the memories he holds dear.

He has similar feelings for much of his religious upbringing; he is at peace with who he is and his faith. He doesn’t disdain traditions and rituals thousands of years old; he is inspired by them. He says it never bothers him to decline hamburgers or hot dogs at team cook-outs; he just brings his own kosher food. He says he is motivated by his heritage. He might be one of a few Jewish quarterbacks in the county, he says, so he is motivated to represent himself and other Jewish athletes as well.

He has put up with negative experiences, too. As a freshman, Herbstman was threatened, bullied and beat up by a classmate, and called a “dirty Jew.” But Herbstman, a happy-go-lucky sort, doesn’t like to talk about such things. There probably are misconceptions and prejudices against every religion, he says. But what can you do? It’s better to focus on what’s good. And what better example right now than last week’s peace agreement in the Middle East?

“Finally, there’s peace,” Herbstman says. “All that fighting was ridiculous.”

Actually, the Israeli-Palestinian accord wasn’t the only agreement celebrated in the Herbstman home this month. If it hadn’t been for some quick rescheduling by University Coach Mark Cunningham--along with the cooperation of the Dana Hills athletic department--Dov wouldn’t have been able to play in Thursday night’s game, which University lost, 19-8.

Today at sunset, Herbstman will join his parents and two younger brothers in celebrating Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is a solemn holiday during which Jews gather at the synagogue to pray and ask God’s forgiveness from their sins. Many also fast, going without food or water until Saturday at sundown.

The Dana Hills game was originally scheduled for Saturday night. When Herbstman discovered that it coincided with Yom Kippur, he and Trojan center Andrew Silberfarb told Cunningham they could not play on such a holy day.

It took some doing, but the two schools worked out the rescheduling.

“We’re just doing what’s best for the kids,” Cunningham said.

“It’s what high school athletics is supposed to be all about.”