More than a coach - Marty Biegel

He is frail now. The years have taken their toll on legs that once pounded and paced the sidelines of Fairfax High’s gleaming basketball court. On a recent Sunday, the slight Jewish man in the red wind-breaker and baseball cap reading “Coach” shuffled with a cane into Canter’s Delicatessen.

Marty Biegel, 86, was heading for a table across the room, and when he got there a group of tall black men rose to cheer:

Biegel, the father figure who helped raise them.

Biegel, the wizard who turned them into champions.

Biegel, the bridge-builder between blacks and whites.

“What’s up, Mr. B?” they said one after another, lining up to give him bear hugs.

“You’re looking good, fellas,” Marty shot back, beaming up at them. “What the hell happened to your Afros?”

Once again, Marty Biegel was back with his boys.

A story that began in angry debates over school desegregation in Los Angeles continues as a love affair today, between a teacher and the players whose lives he changed.

Nearly 40 years ago, in 1969, Biegel took over the basketball coaching job at Fairfax High School. He was a pint-sized scrapper from New York, a history teacher with a heart of gold and no illusions about his new post: The mostly white, Jewish school near Hollywood was strong academically, but pitiful in sports. The chess team won medals. The football players? Don’t ask.

Then Biegel got a gift — a product of good timing, an earthquake and decades of agitation for civil rights.

In 1968, school district boundaries were redrawn, allowing black students living south of Pico Boulevard to attend the school at Melrose and Fairfax avenues. Its numbers grew from 35 to 1,000 in four years, and Fairfax became one of the few city schools to achieve racial balance on its own, without a court order.

Much of Los Angeles fretted when blacks began appearing in white schools during the 1970s. Not Biegel.

He celebrated the new black athletes in his gym — players who could go to the basket with either hand and leap high above the rim. An orthodox Jew, he’d look heavenward and murmur a prayer.

“We’re winners!” he would crow. “We can take anybody!”

Full Story from the Los Angeles Times

Related Links: Marty Biegel - So Cal Jewish Sports Hall of Fame

Elementary students stock food bank shelves

Spencer Elementary students are giving back to the community in a big way this Thanksgiving weekend. We caught up with them doing their good deed and found out how they used their creativity to help the needy.

For weeks, Spencer Elementary students collected all cans.

With the help of some local architects, they used the cans to create a tugboat and their masterpiece was on display at the Jepson Center for about a month.

But this week the students dismantled the boat and donated all the canned goods to the Second Harvest Food Bank.

Students like Janiah Sam took it one step further helping to stock the shelves.

“They need help and we are helping them with whatever they need,” said Sam.

The director of Second Harvest Food Bank Mary J. Crouch, says without the help like this they would never be able to keep up with the demand.

“The demand is up with all the layoffs and everything going on, in our community there are more people needing food there’s more of a need,”said Crouch.

And when the students came up with the idea to help stock the shelves, she was thrilled.

“They came up with the whole idea and designing something that would help the food bank,” said Crouch. “Doing something for their community that is a hometown hero.”

The stories of twelve New York City Gold Key winners

The stories of twelve New York City Gold Key winners at Radiant Minds, the local exhibition and awards ceremony at the Brooklyn Museum.

Scholastic, Inc. was founded in 1927.  The Central New York Region has sponsored an annual art competition for over 55 years.  Scholastic’s Art Awards Program is the largest annual student art competition in Central New York and nationally. Over 5,000 entries are submitted to the CNY competition each year.

Art awards are given in 19 categories of 2 and 3 dimensional media.  Nationally, over 100 scholarships are offered each year to qualified seniors.  The CNY Region encompasses 13 counties and over 400 eligible schools.  More than 60 professional educators, artists, and photographers select the award winners.  Gold Key, Silver Key and Honorable Mention winners are recognized along with American Vision winners, Best of Show, scholarship winners and other cash award winners.

The entire awards show is broadcast to 19 counties in Central New York region by WCNY-TV.  The exhibit and opening reception are housed at the Whitney Applied Technology Center on the campus of Onondaga Community College, Syracuse, NY.

Students to Develop Solutions to Global Water Crisis

Are you feeling ambitious and would like to develop design solutions that explore new ways of understanding, communicating and responding to the global water crisis?

The Aspen Design Challenge is a joint project developed by AIGA and INDEX:, a global nonprofit design network, to engage the millennial generation in solving global issues. The challenge is issued as part of the Aspen Design Summit, an international conference organized for leaders from business, the public sector and nonprofit organizations.

“Designing Water’s Future” grew out of discussions at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, led by Brian Collins, chairman of Collins:, a New York-based transformation design firm, and journalist J. Carl Ganter, co-founder of Circle of Blue, the international network of leading journalists, scientists and communications designers connecting humanity to the global water crisis.

The rules and guidelines for the challenge were distributed to thousands of faculty and students at more than 250 universities from Beijing to Boston, and are available to all with the launch of the Aspen Design Challenge website. Winners will have the opportunity to refine and develop their concepts with world leaders and policy makers at the Aspen Environment Forum, and their solutions will be discussed at the World Economic Forum, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, and the World Business Summit on Climate Change.

Water crisis
More than five million people die each year due to a lack of safe drinking water, and the UN estimates that 5.5 billion people will lack adequate access to freshwater in the next 20 years. Water scarcity has emerged as a serious threat to peoples across the world. Called “the new oil” for the 21st century, water affects everything.

“The global water crisis is a universally threatening and immensely complex problem,” said J. Carl Ganter, director and co-founder of Circle of Blue. “The causes are many —climate change, population growth, over-use — and the ramifications are felt in all areas from environment to security to economic development. This is where we need design students to step in. Design is the intermediary between information and understanding. Young people have the fresh perspective we need, and it is their future which is most at stake.”

“We cannot continue to take water for granted,” said Richard Grefé, executive director of AIGA. “The idea behind the Aspen Design Challenge is that creative design can change the way people think and behave. We have every confidence that these students will devise the types of solutions we need to reframe how we think about water, how we manage it and how we save it—inventive solutions that are simple, powerful and actionable.”

About the Challenge
Students and faculty from around the world will develop ideas this fall and submit proposals by December 2008. Already there are commitments from schools in Australia, China, Denmark, Qatar and the United States. An international jury of accomplished leaders in the design and environmental fields will select contest finalists in February 2009.

Students behind the finalist proposals will have the opportunity to workshop their ideas in Aspen, improving their concepts with feedback from top designers, scientists, journalists and business and NGO leaders. Further, their ideas will be presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (January 28– February 1, 2009); the Aspen Environment Forum (March 25–28, 2009) and to participants of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (November 30–December 11, 2009. The most promising project will receive The INDEX:|AIGA Aspen Design Challenge Prize in August in Copenhagen.

There are no restrictions on the type of solutions that students may submit. Print design, web applications, environment design, physical devices, data presentation tools and other approaches are all encouraged, as are proposals for the conceptual framework or method of dissemination that may propel these designs into public consciousness. Design students are encouraged to lead cross-disciplinary teams of engineers, artists, ethnographers, anthropologists and scientists, and to consider the social, cultural and scientific significance of water.

“The water crisis needs creativity, attention and care—and it needs it now,” said Brian Collins. “Designers can inspire audiences to take action and inform people who may be separated by geography, education or immediate need. So our goal is to enlist a new generation of design thinkers to find better ways to communicate this problem, and drive local action and solutions.”

For more information on the initiative and its developments throughout the fall, visit: www.aspendesignchallenge.org.

Source: CSR Wire, Aspen Design Challenge (image)