It’s not easy living in a foreign country. A different culture, unusual food and new geography are just a few of the anomalies that present themselves. Not to mention the language barrier.
Marisa Gobuty is no stranger to all this, having moved with her family from Encino to Israel when she was 9. But unlike other kids who pick up with their families and immerse themselves in a foreign locale, Marisa was not only meeting the demands of school, but trying to play in the rigorous basketball league in Herzliya. The city team, Bnei Herzliya, starts girls at age 8.
This was no small undertaking, explains Marshall Gobuty, her father. “It was a big adjustment, as basketball was much more serious in Israel and Marisa had to learn the plays in a foreign language.”
When the family moved to Israel, Gobuty knew he couldn’t let his daughter’s gift for basketball fall to the sidelines. Not after he witnessed her score the winning point, with only 2.3 seconds left in the game, that placed Encino’s Balboa Stars on the championship map. She went on to become a member of the Valley all-star team.
Her stint on the all-stars was cut short when the family moved to the Holy Land. In the days leading up to their move, however, her father tracked down Izy Tchino, the manager of Bnei Herzliya.
“About six years ago, I got a phone call from Mr. Marshall Gobuty, telling me that he is moving to Israel with his wife and two daughters from the U.S., and that his younger daughter, Marisa, is a basketball player,” recalls Tchino. He didn’t hesitate to boast about Marisa’s game-winning point for the Balboa Stars.
Amir Doron, the Bnei Herzliya coach, remembers Marisa’s limitations. “She was the smallest player on her team, she didn’t know a word in Hebrew and was very afraid.” However, “In a short time, she improved her game, became taller and much more athletic. During her second year in Israel, she became the most important player on my team.”
It didn’t stop there. When she was almost 12 and in the sixth-grade, Marisa was asked to play with 13- and 14-year-olds. She accepted, which meant that, unlike any other girl her age, Marisa Gobuty was playing on two teams in the league — one age-appropriate, the other older.
Today, at 15, Marisa is at the top of her game. Last summer she attended camp at IMG’s Basketball Academy, a premier multisport training facility located in Bradenton, Fla. Many of the world’s top athletes have trained at the IMG academies, such as Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and Derek Jeter. Additionally, the girls’ high school basketball team is one of the top ranked in the country.
At the camp, there were two girls and 35 boys. Shortly after Marisa arrived, Chris Ward, the IMG summer coach, began calling her “Diana” — after Diana Tarasi, the number-one rookie in the Women’s National Basketball Association.
In August, Dan Barto, the business director at the basketball academy, invited Marisa to attend the academy as a full-time student and player — an invitation extended to a very small fraction of those who go to the camp.
That’s where Marisa is now, living in Sarasota and playing on the IMG Pendleton Panthers with four of the top 20 high school female basketball players in the United States. In keeping with her goals, she plans to return to Israel at the end of the season to play on the Israeli national team.
But she will be back at the IMG academy at the start of her senior year, when college coaches start scouting for prospects. But it doesn’t look like Marisa, only in the 10th-grade, will have to fret; she has already captured the attention of at least one U.S. college scout.
Recently, when Marisa’s father was watching one of her games, he was stopped by a reporter from the New York Times Magazine, who was writing a feature on IMG, and asked: “How is a 15-year-old so focused?”
Marshall Gobuty couldn’t give him a simple answer.