On Sunday morning, the best man I know will do what he does at least twice a month. He will make peanut butter, banana, and chocolate-chip pancakes for his seven-year-old son. He also will make regular pancakes for his eight-year-old daughter, but when he sits down, he will eat the same pancakes as his son.
“I try hard to do the right thing,” he says, “but I also like having fun.”
There has never been a finer man in New York squash than Michael Rothenberg, or a finer leader. Late last year, he stepped down after ten years as president of the Metropolitan Squash Racquets Association. At the recent Tournament of Champions, he was awarded the Board of Governor's Award for outstanding contributions to the game of squash in the New York area.
Ten years ago, the MSRA was slowly being guided out of the worst period in its history by a small group of dedicated volunteers led by Beth Rasin. But the challenges they faced were numerous. Membership was down, there was confusion about whether hardball or softball should be NY’s dominant game, league play was at an all-time low, and member clubs had become reluctant to donate court and staff time to tournaments. Rasin saw a leader in her midst, and selected Rothenberg as her successor.
There has never been a district president like Rothenberg, square as a pair of dice but as popular as a winning gambler; loyal to his wife, his children, his values; playing competitive squash at the highest levels while making opponents and spectators smile at his obvious delight in competition and for making really bad puns (“Nothing is better than making people groan at a pun,” he says).
One time, a few years ago, Rothenberg was saving a parking place outside Grand Central Station for the truck carrying the all-glass court for the Tournament of Champions. As someone tried to pull into the parking place, Rothenberg did the only reasonable thing he could think of: he lay down. When the police and the truck arrived simultaneously, he got the cops laughing at his stunt, and the truck got the parking spot.
But beneath his good humor lies a skilled businessman. When he took over at the MSRA, Rothenberg focused initially on administration, and he made his first risky decision: the MSRA would become the first local district to hire a paid Executive Director. “People were worried about the money we would have to pay the person, but I thought that was the wrong way to think; we needed someone to help us better serve our constituency and help us make money.”
It was a typically bold, but sound, decision. The new Executive Director, Kenny Scher, was savvy both about making money and about pleasing customers. Together, they instituted credit card billing, a customer response system, and a way to make it profitable for clubs to host leagues and tournaments. With this single hire, squash in NYC started its resurgence.
Married to two-time age-group national champion, Zerline Goodman, Rothenberg also had particular sensitivity to women squash players. He started insisting on prize money for pro women’s events in the NY area, he ensured the continuity of women’s league play, and he risked the wrath of the USSRA by refusing to lend MSRA support to the hosting of the National Doubles tournament at a men’s-only club. “It really was a no-brainer; we couldn’t support a sanctioned event that alienated half our constituency,” he says.
Rothenberg loves the game of squash, and he thinks that most who try it will love it, too. So it was natural that as soon as he heard about SquashBusters, he was on the phone trying to convince Greg Zaff to bring it to New York (Zaff was prevented from doing so by his Board, who wanted first to ensure Boston’s success). Stymied there, Rothenberg did the next best thing: he created a Brooklyn-based program that became the precursor to StreetSquash. Later, he both was the brainchild of the Squashkidz program in Poughkeepsie and provided counsel to Tim Wyant’s CitySquash program.
Rothenberg inspires deep loyalty from those who have worked with him. He gets people involved and listens to every opinion. And often, when he knows someone is dead wrong, instead of pulling rank, he will let the mistake be made. “A mistake, as long as you realize and acknowledge it, is a great way to learn,” he says. Perhaps that is why Rothenberg, in his “real” job at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, is widely regarded as one of the most successful nonprofit Executive Directors in the nation.
Rothenberg left the MSRA, in part, for this real job, where he fights for the rights of the underprivileged. Rothenberg left the MSRA, in part, for his growing family, where he and Zerline can be silly with their three children. Rothenberg left the MSRA, in part, so that he could spend more time on the court, where he has so much fun. But Rothenberg also left the MSRA as the greatest leader in the game, where he is sorely missed.
