Author Profile: Dave Hollander

<div style=”CLEAR: both”></div><strong>Rachmones for the underdog:<br />NJ author highlights athletes with scars, not stars, in new book</strong><br /><br />Despite the title of his new book, <em>52 Weeks: Interviews with Champions</em> (Lyons Press), you get the sense that Dave Hollander gravitates toward the underdog, the offbeat, the flawed.<br />“I have for athletes what the Bible says Moses had for the sheep that he was tending — infinite rachmones, infinite sympathy,” Hollander told <em>NJ Jewish News</em> shortly after the release of the book in November.<br />The combination of empathy and love for sports is genetic in the Hollander clan. The author grew up in Newton, where he played on the high school basketball team. “The only record I hold is most technical fouls in a season and career,” he joked.<br />His sister, Elizabeth, was a basketball, softball, and field hockey star and participated in the 1999 Maccabiah Games in Israel; she was inducted into the Sussex County Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. Brother Andy played pro-basketball in Israel, and his other brother, Joe, was an all-area tennis player.<br />Hollander’s father was also a big man on campus at Newton High. Sanford Hollander — an attorney who served as president of United Jewish Federation of Morris-Sussex from 1975-77 was one of the few Jewish students at the school. The elder Hollander was an all-state football star, went to Brown on a football-related scholarship, and played in the North Jersey Semi-Professional Football League from 1954 to 1956. The author describes in <em>52 Weeks</em> an incident during his dad’s days on the gridiron in which his teammates stood beside him in the face of a rival team’s anti-Semitic remarks.<br />The Hollander mater, Roslyn, wasn’t an athlete but “brought with her that great basketball heritage” from her Brooklyn roots, Dave Hollander said. “Her feistiness and my father’s verbal proficiency gave me the tools to garner my technical foul record.”<br />The interviews in <em>52 Weeks</em> are only part of the book. Hollander also reminisces about growing up in Jersey, competing with his friends on the playing field, and learning from his coaches and family.<br />The Hollanders attended the Jewish Center of Sussex County in Newton, which his grandfather “helped build with his bare hands.” After his bar mitzva, Hollander reluctantly attended Hebrew high school. “The nudge was a very strong shove.” In retrospect, however, he admits, “I’m glad I did.”<br />“That’s where I get my perspective on sports…. I decided if a guy was cool or courageous or displayed leadership based on his performance on the field…that’s what impresses me the most.<br />That’s what I was trying to say in the book. I tried to reveal the regular person in the superstar athlete and make the regular people I grew up with my heroes.”<br />Like his dad, Hollander is an attorney by training, “but it didn’t stick.” He is coauthor of the bestselling <em>Princeton Review’s The Best Law Schools</em> (Random House) and has published articles on sports, law, and social issues.<br /><br /><strong>A serendipitous start</strong><br />In 2003, while Hollander was managing Arlene’s Grocery, a music club in Manhattan, he was approached by an advertising representative for NY Press, an alternative weekly, who tried to sweeten the pot by including the ad in NY Sports Express, a sister publication.<br />Hollander didn’t go for the ad, but suggested he write for the Express, articles based on interviews with famous athletes — but with a twist. “I [had] grown tired of seeing these athletes so tightly wrapped and packaged, spewing nothing but cliches…. I wanted to interview these guys in a way that would get them to talk about themselves and also ask them kind of off-the-wall questions to unearth their personalities.”<br />Hollander chose his subjects based on a combination of his own interests and a desire for variety. “I wanted athletes from other sports besides the major ones.” Some of the more familiar athletes in <em>52 Weeks</em> include Willis Reed, Dwight Gooden, and Lawrence Taylor, but he also includes chats with less-thanhousehold names like auto racer Sara Fisher, college football player Jeff Otis, and Harlem playground basketball legend Pee Wee Kirkland.<br />He cites his favorite interviewee as boxer Chuck Wepner, “The Bayonne Bleeder,” who has been recognized as the inspiration behind the Rocky movie franchise.<br />Hollander spoke of having a special pride in Jewish athletes, including Ron Blomberg, the former New York Yankee who became baseball’s first designated hitter 30 years ago.<br />“My namesake, [King] David, seemed to be a real crack shot with the slingshot,” said Hollander.<br />“I come from the David perspective. I like the Davids taking on the Goliaths, the guys who aren’t the big superstars but who take their ability and desire and go far beyond expectations.”<br /><br /><div align=”right”><span style=”FONT-SIZE: 85%”>This article originally appeared in the <em>New Jersey Jewish News</em>, Jan. 19, 2006</span></div></div></div>