Written by Don Bryd
Congrats to the Beren Academy boys basketball team in Houston, Texas, for making it to the state semifinals in the Texas Private and Parochial School championship. Now for the bad news: the Beren Academy team won’t be allowed to play in the semis because the state association refuses to move the game to a time when the Jewish school can play.
The academy appealed to TAPPS to have the game time moved, but the agency’s nine-member board unanimously voted it down.
Dallas Covenant will instead play Kerrville Our Lady of the Hills, the team that Beren defeated in the regional final. The Beren team, meanwhile, will continue practicing this week, hoping that TAPPS moves the game time to earlier Friday.
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“There’s nothing in the Jewish religion that doesn’t want us to play basketball,” Beren senior point guard Isaac Mirwis said. “But it’s tradition, it’s principle, and we stick true to our principles and that’s what makes an identity … God doesn’t take a week off from us, so we can’t take a week off from God.”Harry Sinoff, the Beren headmaster and a rabbi, thinks that his school’s request is reasonable and he doesn’t understand why TAPPS remains so rigid.
The team is still practicing. Just in case.
