By Joshua Rosenstein, other
Simone Edwards, a 6’4″center for the Seattle Storm WNBA team does not look like your average Israeli. When she speaks English, the Jamaican-born Edwards doesn’t sound much like an Israeli either. But when you hear her sing “Hatikva,” which she knows by heart, there can be no doubt that in her soul, Simone Edwards is all sabra.
Edwards left her native Kingston at the age of 17. “They [recruiters from the States] said, if you can run and jump, we’ll give you a scholarship to play college basketball.” Edwards smiles at the memory, “I didn’t even know what basketball was at the time,” she says. After playing ball for Seminole Junior College in Oklahoma from 1991–93, Edwards transferred to Iowa State. She graduated in ‘97 with a B.A. in sociology and went into professional women’s basketball. At her first WNBA training camp, she was selected as a developmental player and assigned to New York’s Liberty team, but was put on the reserve bench for her first season due to knee problems.
Edwards first went to Israel in August of ‘97. The initial decision was part random opportunity and part curiosity. After a season on the benches she was itching for her first chance to play ball professionally. She also grew up Christian and had heard about the Holy Land since birth. After the season of ‘97, she flew to Israel to play basketball for the Ramle team.
That first season was a life-changing experience for Edwards. Israel and her people quickly found their way into Edwards’ heart. “The love I get is overwhelming…” she says, shaking her head. When she talks about Israel her face takes on an animated warmth and her eyes get distant and homesick. “My best friends are in Israel,” she says. “I mean the real friends, the ones that will come to rescue you at three in the morning.”
Edwards was signed by the WNBA and assigned to the Seattle Storm in May of 2000. In her three years of playing for the Storm she has averaged 7.4 points per game, 4.30 rebounds per game, 24.2 minutes per game and started 39 out of the 67 games she played.
Since her initial experience, Edwards has spent five off-seasons in Israel. She plays the WNBA season in the States, which lasts from May through August, and then hops a plane to Tel Aviv. Edwards keeps an apartment in Ramat Gan. The team she plays for subsidizes her housing for the eight-month contract. Most foreign players then go back to their countries and move on. Edwards, however, pays for the additional four months out of her own pocket. “Israel is the place where I am most happy.” she says, “I could make double the money in other countries, but I want to be where I am happy…I never get homesick when I am over there because I am home.”
In addition to the eight months out of the year that she plays for Israeli teams, Edwards often flys to Israel for a week or a few days just to visit. “I get so much love and attention over there,” she says, “I am always laughing, having fun, full of love.”
When American friends ask her if she is scared, she says no, that she’s with family. “Even if there is a bomb or some balagan, that’s life, you know, you can’t stop your life for that, if I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I could get hit by a bus in Italy.”
Edwards feels close to her Israeli friends even when she is in the States. She says she often feels the need to defend Israel to American peers. “Americans never realized until 9/11 what it’s like. Now they are starting to know… I always say, Don’t judge until you are really there.” About the current situation in Israel, Edwards says she identifies strongly with the Israelis. Whenever there is a bombing or terrorist attack, she feels the anger and pain along with her Israeli friends.
Besides her love of the people, culture and weather, Edwards enjoys the Israeli athletic atmosphere. After her first year playing for the Ramle team, Edwards played two years for Bnei Yehudah, one for Ra’anana, and one for Ramat Chen. In the States, she explains, the basketball world is more of a business. There is more pressure getting a spot on the team, the players practice more and play double the games per week. In Israel, she says, she is always relaxed and stress-free.
One of the most important differences for her, however, is the closeness of the players. In Israel, she says, the relationships within the team are more intense. The better the friendships among team members, the better the team. For Edwards, the money and glamour of the athletic world take a backseat role to the love and unity she feels in playing on a team. The past two years in Israel, she has consciously chosen to captain losing teams. In both cases, over the course of the season, she brought the team from the last position in the league to playing in the final playoffs.
Edward tells the story of an erev Pesach in Israel a few years ago. She had to have serious knee surgery. Her close friend and teammate spent all evening standing by her bedside, watching over her. Edwards says she told her friend to leave the hospital and go have the seder with her family but the friend refused and waited all evening for Edwards to recover enough to travel. Then, she says, her friend loaded her into a wheelchair and brought her home for a late seder. “I’d never even met her mother, but they plied me with home-cooked food and hugs and kisses and holiday atmosphere. So much warmth…”
Simone Edwards will be bounding across basketball courts in Seattle this summer. But as soon as the leaves start turning in September, she’ll be on the first flight to Israel. You might find her playing beach volleyball on the Tel Aviv shoreline or catching some rays down in Eilat. While she is in Seattle, however, she wants the Jewish community to know that they have a friend on the Seattle Storm.