Los Angeles, CA – After practice one late-summer day in 1986, Alan Veingrad strode into the Green Bay Packers’ locker room, feeling both spent and satisfied.
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An undrafted player from an obscure college, he had made the team and then some. On the next Sunday, opening day of the N.F.L. season, he would be starting at offensive tackle.
In his locker, Mr. Veingrad found the usual stuff, his street clothes and sweat suit and playbook. On a small bench, though, lay a note from the Packers’ receptionist. It carried a name that Mr. Veingrad did not recognize, Lou Weinstein, and a local phone number.
Alone in a new town, too naïve to be wary, Mr. Veingrad called. This Lou Weinstein, it turned out, ran a shoe store in Green Bay, Wis. He had just read an article in the paper about a Jewish player on the Packers, and he wanted to meet and welcome that rarity.
A few days later, Mr. Veingrad joined Mr. Weinstein for lunch at the businessman’s golf club. There Mr. Weinstein invited the player to accompany his family to Rosh Hashana services at Cnesses Israel, a synagogue near the site of the Packers’ original home field, City Stadium.
It had been a long time since Mr. Veingrad had spent much time in shul, nearly a decade since his bar mitzvah. He knew the date of the Packers’ Monday night game against the Chicago Bears better than he did Yom Kippur. “But when I heard the Hebrew,” he recently recalled of that service in Green Bay, “I felt a pull.”
Maybe it was a presentiment, maybe it was the sort of destiny that Yiddish calls “goyrl.” Whatever the word for it, something stirred into motion. And that something brought Mr. Veingrad into the Chabad House – a Jewish center run by the Lubavitcher Hasidic movement – near the University of Southern California campus here five nights before the 2010 Super Bowl.
A promotional flier announced the evening’s subject as “Super Bowl to Super Jew.” There was truth in that advertising. Mr. Veingrad goes these days by his Hebrew name, Shlomo. He wore a black skullcap and the ritual fringes called tzitzit; he wore the Super Bowl ring he won in 1992 with the Dallas Cowboys and the Rolex watch that was a gift from Emmitt Smith, the team’s star running back.
Within his 6-foot-5 frame, Mr. Veingrad embodies two Jewish archetypes that do not often meet. He is the ba’al guf, the Jewish strongman, and the ba’al teshuva, the returnee to the faith. While two Jewish boxers on the scene now – Yuri Foreman and Dimitriy Salita – also are prominently observant, Mr. Veingrad may well be the only Orthodox athlete from the United States’ hugely popular team sports.
“I believe I played in the N.F.L. and have that ring so I can share my story with other Jews,” Mr. Veingrad, 46, said shortly before the U.S.C. event.
amazing story
great story! thanks VIN.
we need lots more Ahavat Yisroel.
Chabad is doing an amzing job.
great story.
i saw the jewish basketball player Tamir Goodman a few weeks ago speak. good speaker. enjoyed his story too.
Its wonderful we have BT’s to bring color and energy and emes to our community.
Bemakom She’bal Teshuva omdim – aflio tzadikim gemurim aino yecholim la’amod
Wow what a refreshing story! If we learn from this a mussar and we all play a little more ball – and spend a little less time on shtussim and norishkeit… we would bring Moshiach closer!! Let’s all get off the computers this Motsei Shabbos (Parshas Kabbalas HaTorah) and either play some ball or open a sefer…
I don’t get the “goyrl” reference.
It makes one wonder why we find validation for our beliefs in a former NFL payer. Its nice to see but should be a wake up that we are not on our own sending the right message.
8- his story is great becaues he was not religious and did not pursue a religous life in his younger years. he is a doing a kiddush hashem by becoming frum and since he was a star athlete his story has alot of public interest. a great example for young jews growing up today. he knows where his priorities lay. i really like hearing about this person. i saw the story they did on him a year ago where he was wrapping tefillin. hes a great example for the younger generations. glad to see him in the news.
I find the stories of people who were born frum and remained true to their upbringing and heritage, despite the many trials we go through, much more inspiring than the stories of tinokos shenishbu who feel the need to rehash all of the averos they commited before returning. But that is just my own personal prefference. 🙂
I heard once this guy talking about his past it was amazing to listen
Great story. I know what makes a Super Bowl, but what makes a super Jew?