Having lived the dream, former NFL star returns to his Jewish, and Jersey, roots

by Ron Kaplan
NJJN Staff Writer

Alan Veingrad lived an American boy’s fantasy. For six years (1986-92), he was an offensive lineman in the National Football League, first for the Green Bay Packers, then for the Dallas Cowboys, known as “America’s team.” He played alongside such all-stars as Troy Aikman, James Lofton, Sterling Sharpe, Emmett Smith, and Michael Irvin and is the proud owner of a Super Bowl ring for his participation in the Cowboys’ 1992 victory over the Buffalo Bills.

But that wasn’t enough.

In an interview with NJ Jewish News from Fort Lauderdale, where he resides and serves as president of Horizon Moving & Storage, Veingrad recalled the process that led him to explore and return to his Jewish roots.

It is also a story he will share at a Friday night dinner Feb. 25 at Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob and David in West Orange, in a talk sponsored by Lubavitch Center of Essex County and AABJ&D.

“Football is of great interest, and when you have someone who’s played in the NFL and now wears a yarmulka, tzitzit, prays three times a day, and is shomer Shabbos, you’ve really got something,” said Veingrad.

Born in Brooklyn in 1963, Veingrad and his family moved to Elizabethtown, NJ, when he was three and then to Miami in 1971. Like many young Jewish kids, his early experiences with religious instruction bordered on the unpleasant. “You went to Hebrew school and you don’t like it and it wasn’t fun but you go because your parents make a check [mark] next to a task that is a requirement in their eyes,” he recalled. Once that obligation is fulfilled, “they [generally] don’t bother you again.”

There were enough Jews in Miami, where he attended Sunset High School, that his religion was never an issue. Attending East Texas State University in Commerce, Texas, about 60 miles northeast of Dallas, he says he never experienced any anti-Semitism (then again, being 6’5” and weighing in at more than 270 pounds sort of discourages that sort of behavior). Nevertheless, he felt like an outsider, sometimes uncomfortable with the typical locker room banter in which no subject seems taboo.

“Most of [my teammates] had never met a Jew before,” said Veingrad, 50 pounds lighter than his playing days. They often asked him questions about Judaism, “but I didn’t have the answers.”

Moving on to the high-pressure of the NFL didn’t change his diligent approach to preparing for his job, nor his situation as one of the few Jews in the game.

“In my experience, the ownership and coaches in NFL didn’t really care where you’re from, what college you went to, if you went, what religion or color you are. They only care about three hours on Sunday. That you perform on a level that helps [the team] win.

“I never experienced anything other than work hard. I had to prove myself every single day.”

Giving back

Veingrad has come to his Jewish observance relatively recently. “I think it’s a combination of things,” he said. Encounters with rabbis over the years made him take stock of his spiritual needs. Veingrad was grateful for past successes, but realized “there has to be more meaning to life.”

He was still not very observant when he agreed to appear in an editorial advertisement on behalf of the American Jewish Committee in 1995. AJC ran a series of “What Being Jewish Means to Me” spots featuring public figures and approached Veingrad as a potential spokesman.

“When I was in the NFL, I used to do a lot of public school speaking — literacy programs, stay in school, say no to drugs. I considered being a motivation speaker, giving talks at Rotary Clubs,” he said.

In the ad, Veingrad wrote of his unique status, how he was the object of proselytizing in college, and how he would say his own silent Jewish meditation when his Cowboy teammates recited the Lord’s Prayer before taking the field. “In the rough and tumble environment of an NFL team, a Jew is an outsider.”

Among other issues in the piece, he also wrote, “I always knew in my heart that I would marry a Jewish woman with whom I could share my love for Judaism and build a Jewish family.” He found that woman in Marla Reis, whom he married in 1993.

The birth of his daughter, Jeri (now 10), had a similar spiritual impact on Veingrad. “As we are her link to the Jewish past, she is our link to the Jewish future,” he wrote at the time. Jeri and her siblings — Brooke, seven, and Ryan, six — attend the Hebrew Academy Community School in Margate, Fla., where the family has been “instrumental” in starting a Chabad house in nearby downtown Fort Lauderdale, according to Rabbi Mendy Kasowitz of the Lubavitch Center, who invited Veingrad to speak about his experiences. Veingrad planned on davening on Shabbat at the Center and addressing the congregation there at the Kiddush.

In an e-mail to NJJN, Kasowitz explained the appeal of a speaker like Veingrad. “He is a former NFL player who is now an observant Jew, maybe the only one in all of professional sports!

“That’s enough for us.”

Ron Kaplan can be reached at RKaplan@njjewishnews.com.