Jewish youth athletes from Pittsburgh competing in Olympic-style event in Florida

Sylvie Bails will enter her freshman year this fall at Taylor Allderdice High School in her native Squirrel Hill.

But the 14-year-old athlete already has her eyes set further on the horizon.

“I would love to play college soccer — that’s definitely a goal,” said Sylvie, who has played soccer competitively for about 10 years. “I just really love the sport. I’ve been playing it so long, I’ve just fallen in love over the years.”

Sylvie is among about a dozen teenage Jewish Pittsburghers traveling to Florida this week to take part in JCC Maccabi Games, an Olympic-style youth event expected to draw thousands of Jewish teens from North and South America, Israel, Europe and elsewhere.

The youth athletes will compete in sports ranging from soccer and baseball to girls volleyball, table tennis, and swimming, the JCC Association of North America said.

The JCC, which operates community centers in Squirrel Hill and Pittsburgh’s South Hills, bills itself as “the most expansive platform for Jewish life in the U.S. and Canada.”

The JCC Maccabi Games will kick off with an opening ceremony at 6 p.m. Monday at the FLA Live Arena in Sunrise, Fla., about 10 miles west of Ft. Lauderdale. The indoor arena is the home of the NHL’s Florida Panthers.

“I am filled with pride this summer, as more than 3,000 Jewish teens from around the world take part in the JCC Maccabi Games,” said Doron Krakow, president and CEO of JCC Association of North America.

“For thousands of athletes, along with coaches, volunteers, host families and a wall-to-wall coalition of Jewish community organizations, this year’s games are an extraordinary reminder of the capacity for good across a diverse and dynamic Jewish community.”

Starting out young

Sylvie took to soccer at age 4. She was better than her older sister, now 16.

“My sister started us out — but she wasn’t very good,” Sylvie laughed. “So my parents said, ‘Let’s try the other kid.’ ”

Sylvie played for about five years in the Pittsburgh Dynamo Youth Soccer league. Dynamo teams usually play in Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park.

Around age 10, she joined a city club, Arsenal Football Club, which evolved into Steel City Football Club.

She also played on her co-ed team at Community Day School, a Jewish pre-K-to-8 school in Squirrel Hill.

Last year, Sylvie switched from defender to midfielder, where she needs to run more and maintain intense stamina, she said. She began working with a personal trainer at Strength Lab PGH, a locally owned Downtown gym.

“You can really help with everything in the midfield — defense, offense, all of the above,” Sylvie said. “It’s a really important position.”

Up for the challenge

Kimi Smuckler is motivated by a fire hydrant.

She has been playing soccer for half of her 12 years. Kimi said she joined the Beadling Soccer League, which practices near Southpointe in Washington County, this year to switch to the midfielder position. She trains by running.

Her father measured the length of a run around their Squirrel Hill block. Once around is a half-mile, she said. Four times? Two miles. The fire hydrant across the street from her house is always the starting point.

A seventh grader at Community Day School, Kimi is competing this week in the JCC Maccabi Games for the first time.

“I’m really excited — I’ve never been away from home so long,” she said.

During her stay in Florida, Kimi will be living — alongside Sylvie — with a Jewish host family, which has three kids, she learned.

Kimi admits she’s most excited to play with international athletes, other kids and teens from Argentina and Mexico.

“I think it’ll be really cool to see how good the competition is,” she said. “It’ll be fun to play with people I’ve never played with before.”

Kimi also will be playing alongside her older brother Benji, a standout youth athlete in his own right.

A double threat

Benji plays both soccer and baseball but will compete at the JCC Maccabi Games only in soccer.

“I realized it’s a lot different in baseball,” said Benji, who’s entering his freshman year at Winchester Thurston School, an independent preparatory school formed in 1887 and based in Shadyside. “A positive attitude (in baseball) affects you a little less. You can really rely only on yourself.”

Benji joined Steel City Football Club about three years ago. He practices several times a week at No Offseason Sports, a sports center in Tarentum, and competes on weekends from winter through June every year.

Benji calls Judaism “a big part of his life;” his family attends services at Congregation Beth Shalom in Squirrel Hill, and he celebrated a Bar Mitzvah recently at the synagogue. The JCC Maccabi Games speak to that, he said.

But, Benji said he loves soccer because of the team dynamic, the interactions.

“There are pretty good players” in Pittsburgh, he said. “I think we have a pretty good team. Everyone has a positive attitude.

“In my book, if you don’t have a positive attitude, it’s hard to find chemistry with the other players.”

The JCC Maccabi Games conclude FridayThe organization already is prepared to announce details about 2024, when the Jewish youth event will take place in West Bloomfield Hills, Mich., a Detroit suburb, from July 28 to Aug. 2, 2024.