Debbie Weinstein
Debbie Weinstein was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in May 1963, the oldest of three sisters, with Vickie a year and a half younger and Jodi four and a half years younger. Her father, Clark Schwartz, grew up in Omaha and met her mother, Susan, in college; her mother left school to become a wife and homemaker as was common at the time. The family worked in her father's family plumbing business, but when it struggled and failed in the late 1960s, they moved to Dallas to start a branch of a food delivery company called Guaranteed Foods. The business thrived until the Texas economy declined in the 1980s.
Debbie grew up in what was then the northernmost part of Dallas, attending Spring Creek Elementary and J. Frank Dobie, and watched Westwood Junior High being built. The family moved to the Memorial area of Houston for her junior high and high school years, returning to Dallas around her freshman year of college. She discovered gymnastics at age eleven after taking classes at a Dallas rec center, later switching to tennis her junior year of high school. She earned a degree in International Studies from Emory University in Atlanta, where she was very active in her sorority and served as president her senior year.
At Emory, Debbie met Jeff Weinstein, son of Adrian and Lauren Weinstein, and the two married in 1988 at Shearith Israel, where the family has celebrated many milestones. They have three children: Elizabeth, born in 1991, who works in social media; Erin, born in 1993, who works in data analytics in New York; and Max, a high school senior. Encouraged by her father-in-law, then president of the JCC, Debbie began coaching gymnastics in 1987 and founded the competitive JCC Gems team. Deeply committed to Jewish life, she raised her children with Jewish education and built a program that uses gymnastics to teach values, confidence, and kindness, hoping to be remembered as someone who lived with integrity and made a difference.
Full Transcript
couple seconds in okay today is November 14 2018 today I'm interviewing Debbie Weinstein for doubt she was restoring the society my name is Liz Bader and go ahead and tell me your full name and what your parents names are as well my name is Deborah Jill Swartz weinstein my father is Clark Schwartz and my mother is Susan hoffman / Levinson Schwartz and when we're when we born and do you have any siblings on what are their names okay I was born in Omaha Nebraska in May of 1963 and I have two sisters I'm the oldest Vickie is a year and half younger than me and
Jodi is four and a half years younger than I am um what did your parents do for I guess for Santa how did your hands arrived in Dallas do they really born here knows it was so my parents my dad grew up in Omaha and I met my mother in college and she immediately quit and became a wife and you know just what they did back then and they moved to Omaha when he graduated and they had me and they stayed there working in my dad's family's plumbing business and in the late 60s it struggled and then it failed and they were trying to figure
out what to do next as a family and they decided to move to Dallas and start a branch of this novel thing called guaranteed foods which is one of those food delivery services based on meat so people could buy like six months worth of steak and get all these other staples - and it would be delivered to your house and the meat was a really good quality meat and it sold to the middle classes and that's what brought the whole entire family to Dallas it was guaranteed foods and then they went off on their own and I blanking on what the name of it he
came and then it hit the 80s in Texas and what happened in the eighties in Texas the whole middle-class economy went down as did their company but it was really a great company until then provided for all of us tell me about the neighbor where did you grow up here we're neighborhood did you go over Dallas so when I was younger I lived in Dallas for elementary school and then we left and went to Houston for junior in high school during high in high school because the company was bigger and they felt like they needed to be in two cities and then it got too
big of my uncle needed my dad to come back when we moved back my freshman year of college so I grew up in the neighborhood what was at that point like the northernmost part of where people lived in Dallas I went to Spring Creek elementary school and I went to J Frank Dobie when we lived in apartment and we moved into a house I went to Spring Creek and I think I lived there we saw Westwood junior high being built that's how long ago it was and I'm not sure there was much community much passed there so what school activities is words did you want
to spin when you were a child well back when I was a child which doesn't seem like so long ago but most of what we did was outside in the front yard you know we pretended and we ran around and we played with our neighbors and ran up and down the alley and I don't know we'd play tetherball we played pretend games I think I win fronts Park rec center opened they offered all these classes and to my mom that was like so awesome so she signed us up and I took a gymnastics class and I took a baton class and I think we took
an acting classroom I don't know it was it was kind of just did it for a few months and it was a lot of fun and then when I would we moved to Houston and I was going into sixth grade and my mom said hey do you want to try gymnastics not like sure why not I walked in the gym and loved it you know but we it's a different world we grew up doing gymnastics outside you know you watched Olga Korbut on TV and the Olympics and you sat in the front yard and you played and you I mean I walked into the gym
what it takes me 2 to 3 years to teach kids now and we were doing that in our front yard so do you think a gymnastic this time I gave you some sort of I guess a way to you know really stress or way to just go crazy away it was fun and I think back then we thought about those kind of things that you know he just it was fun it was different it was challenging I mean what is not to love about flying through the air and landing do you remember any the friends there were teachers that taught you in during that time
when you're working in domestics yeah because I you know back then we didn't have Facebook all these wasted cellphones and free long distance so when my family moved back to Dallas I pretty much lost touch with most people in Houston because they just didn't have a way to keep in touch and we went similar you know different pathways I didn't go to UT for school I went to Emory so I wasn't in that same group anymore so to speak you know just and it was a long distance so did you gymnastics in Dallas no no no no I was in college at that point I
quit gymnastics my junior of high school at the end of my junior of high school and switched to tennis and there was gymnastics is a sport outside of my program that is meant for younger kids they would look at that point they were looking for Olympians they want to look in prisons they were having a great time doing gymnastics you know and I was gonna be a senior in high school don't care anyway and so I went to college you know whatever then I came back here I I got into gymnastics back here because my father-in-law was president of the JCC and one day he
said to me hey Debbie are you interested in coaching gymnastics know what I don't know and he said well they're looking for somebody to help on Sunday afternoons and it was probably the biggest mistake I ever made was saying yes not really a mistake but I'm sure my dad was going okay I sent you to college and now you're gonna teach him a six but I just loved it I loved working with kids and I love the JCC and everything about it and it was just I couldn't think of doing anything else with your family religious okay my family started out conservative but I think
they were only conservative because my grandparents were conservative but I think they were only conservative because that's what they knew there wasn't anybody in my family that did anything my dad went to services for holidays when we were little and that was about it once we got older he quit going my mom it was important to her that we went although she grew up without much religion no my dad's the one that grew up with religion I just loved being Jewish and was one of those kids that it just meant something too and so I had to know it was it's always been just a
big part of my life but I grew up so we were conservative and then we switched to a reformed synagogue in Houston because honestly I didn't like the teaching at the synagogue I was at and my mom said to complain to the rabbi and the teacher was the rabbi so I think at that point she decided it was time to find somewhere that I would be happier so they switched basically for me what a the name of the performance Beth Israel and it was a phenomenal place to grow up it was well I mean I was looking different completers but it was so much of
my high school identity was through the religious school program it was amazing I met a lot of people I was introduced to amazing teachers and probably the coolest and greatest part of it was the Debbie Friedman's on staff in our synagogue and used to take us on collage to retreat weekends and play and who couldn't listen to Debbie Friedman you know forever and it was just it was just such a great place to be do you [Music] were you part of Big Oil or anything out of the youth group okay so I lived in a part of Houston called Memorial but I lived again about
as far out as you could live yeah and most of the Jews did not know I was in boo boo Oh in ninth grade because again it was very important to my mother that we were in the Jewish activities and we were really far even for that chapter and it was a memorial chapter and people didn't want to pick me up it was kind of hard and then tenth grade I got invited to come try out STP and it was a high school sorority and it was only in Houston and they had a fraternity counterpart to it I don't think they're still there today it
was the best thing I ever did for me it was an instant group of friends it was the nicest people we had so much fun we had so many high school memories and it was because of this group these two the sorority and the fraternity and so I wasn't in bBYO but I was in something that we did chat we did projects with bBYO it was just a different deal where did you go to college one can you major I went to Emory University in Atlanta Georgia and I majored in International Studies and the reason I majored in International Studies is because they love languages
I picked them up really easily and I thought what can I do with my languages besides major in a language because I didn't want to do the literature and it was International Studies so but then he came back to Dallas and I tried to find a job in something international back in the 80s and there was nothing in Dallas that was international back in the eighties so how did you meet your spouse today well I married to Jeff Weinstein he is the son of Adrian Loren Weinstein and he he and I met in college because well the first time I saw him was the coke
toast at Emory cheering away wonderful Wednesday which if anybody went to Emory they would know exactly what it is because it gets brought up every time you and he was pointed out to me is there's that kid from Dallas do you know him no and he was in the fraternity that I hung out with with all my friends those were there our guy friends but he's a year older and I needed somebody to drive home with me sophomore year because I was going to study abroad and I had met him a little bit from Lauren lux because she had gone with him to three formal
so I kind of met him need somebody drive home and I said hey can you drive come with me and the rest is Harry Met Sally - the Delhi see we both parties and yeah we both work I was I was in D Phi e and I was actually very very very active I was a lots of different offices but president my senior year and Jeff was in a PI which was as I said our sorting fraternity hang out together and he was not very many offices I think he ran the Commission would see the semester what did you marry we got married in 1988
so you how many years prior 40s or not it was a lot of time back then and where did you get married as yeah we got married at Cherith Israel okay we've done everything it's yours Israel we didn't long today yes kids got named there or I can tap up it's just about misfits and Bar Mitzvah there speaking of children can you do anything they're doing okay I have Elizabeth she was born in 1991 and she is a in charge of she is in social media at the Richards group she does work on the Dr Pepper Snapple Group account and some other accounts and really
enjoys it and loves the fast pace my second child is Erin and she was born in 1993 and she lives in New York and she works for an online retailer out of London called ASOS ASOS and she does data analytics and business insights and I'd like to tell you what that is but I even on the looking and then my third child is max and he is a senior and in high school and we'll see what he's going to do I don't know he would ideally also I went to High Holidays when Jeff and I were dating at and we belong to a reformed synagogue
and we were in put into an overflow room with the speaker and I called Jeff up when I got home and I said Jeff can I go with you to your synagogue tomorrow because I can't go back to this one and I don't know how he did it because I didn't understand having tickets and all of that kind of stuff I just knew that you know an arsenal use what right and he got me there and I went and I have never gone back yeah so how important was it yes it was incredibly important having my kids be Jewish and having Jewish grandchildren was incredibly
important to me and I we sent our kids to Jewish preschool we sent our kids to Jewish day school Aaron went to a different high school because she needed to have a different environment socially and she did great and but and Max was in a different school because different reasons and he is now a I'm not and Elizabeth went to Jana I think Jewish day school is amazing and we wanted to do whatever we could to help keep that Jewishness intact so back to your position when you first started that you like Danny that was it and then how did you end up going from
even a part-time full-time to the program itself so after I'm married you asked me to remember this after I got married I did this Sundays and then that next fall after I got married I was working for my father and he needed somebody during the week to work with his team and I'm like that sounds like fun and they weren't really a team they just went twice a week and they were more advanced and they had fun and they were called a team so I worked with them and we and that was in the fall of 87 and I worked with them for a year
and we in the fall of 88 I said you know I think these girls are ready to compete I think they need something besides just coming to gymnastics and that's when our competitive team was born so I just kind of worked my way into it and then once I really got into it I had so much fun I just couldn't imagine doing anything else like that anything that would break into my gymnastics time I didn't want to do because I got so much out of what I was doing here I mean it's it's like for me it's been a dream job I love gymnastics as
a kid and loved anything about it and being able to coach it is three million times better well the name wasn't of the team here it's a JCCC gems and that name came from I just might as well give Paul cut it so Paul Thompson was the athletic director at the time and he had coached gymnastics and he he basically listened to my whim and got us started and he decided that we should be called the gems and he created the logo and he did everything and he found a league for us to compete in and he and I competed that team until he left
so I've been here since 1987 however I left from 91 to 94 because my husband did a fellowship in Minnesota and then when I came back within a couple months I was back in my position it was very nice young girls coming through here or what the program does for these young girls just besides them getting more some of the nice things but also maybe to character overalls confidence do you think that program wasn't a lot so I think that we have a program that is so special that you wouldn't find a gymnastics program I don't think anyone else that's like ours our program is
not about the gymnastics we teach gymnastics but we our goal is to use gymnastics as the vehicle to create great Jewish adults we're not Jewish because now there's more non Jewish people and Oakley women but it's it's really what can we do to empower these kids so that they can be great leaders and and just great adults and and comfortable and who they are and what they are so we use gymnastics to teach them how to set goals we use gymnastics to teach them how to work hard we use it to teach them how to deal with life's disappointments and what do you do when
things don't go your way you know what we use number-one rule in our gym is to treat each other the way you want to be treated you know the basic tenets of Judaism and that we hope to that ever we start every year practices we start every camp with what's the number-one rule in this gym treat people the way you want to be retreated because if everybody does that we don't have any problems and so we have a pretty problem-free program because that is the rule and the kids kind of get it and they they tow that line and as a result when we are
in the gym kids are not going to be doing against each other you know you go to other programs and the kids all compete against each other because they're fine for who's gonna be first our kids are just as happy well on the outside cheering for people when when they meet them because that's what you do that's what a teammate is and what it's about and it's the epitome of our program is if you can cheat cheer for somebody else who beat you then we've taught you something well I think my growth is a person and my being in the gym has definitely gone hand-in-hand
I think all of the experience I had with kids before I ever had my own kids made me a much calmer mother I I think what I've gotten to do in the benefit of the longevity of what I've done is it really has given me some good perspectives it's helped me with how I brought up my kids it's helped me with how I've counseled other parents on bringing up their kids and I think a lot of parents don't really understand what kids are going through and what they're doing and how much of what a kid does is for the parents approval without the parent be
even being there and knowing and I just think knowing a lot of that it just helps make you makes it changes how you look at things I think my friend said it's made me a much more patient person but I think that's probably favorite patient anyway I think that I I don't know I just think I just think it's empowered me to be confident what I'm doing and how I'm bringing up kids and how I'm treating kids and how I'm developing kids and you just use that on yourself too and and I can honestly tell you I use my advice to myself when I'm playing
tennis because I go out on the tennis court and I know exactly what I'm doing and I'm getting inside my head and then I say okay you just told the girls last night that they can't look and you know what define themselves by one thing they have to you know and so I sit and give myself the same advice I've given to my girls the night before because inappropriate and so I know that I'm doing that in all the areas of my life you know if I'm going to give that advice I got to be able to internalize it also for a future for future
people we want to teach your masters and want to teach a new sport is teach in general what one piece of advice you would leave for them I think if you are going to work with kids you will get the most out of kids if it is up to them I think for me to go in the gym and a kid is not trying hard me pushing them into their splits because they're not trying hard isn't teaching them a thing if they want something they have to learn how to come from the inside to work for it and if they don't work for it themselves
and I do it all for them I'm not teaching them anything and so in our program I have kids that want to be perfect and one win I have kids that want to throw themselves through the air and don't care if they land on their feet but they just want to try the hardest skills they can and and I have kids that are scared to death of competing I have kids that don't know where their body is and they stick in my program until they finish and don't understand how to get a leg straight because their body doesn't feel it and they don't give up
and so I think when you're working with kids you need to figure out what their goals are and your job is to teach them how to get there it's not to get them there thank you so much for coming I really appreciate it this one last question um in there - you know the other ones like was one thing what most people to remember about you in general so I thought about that and I think I think there's two things I want to be remembered one way from the gym and I want to be remembered similarly but differently just who I am so from gymnastics
I want to be remembered the way I showed you those notes from those girls I want to be remembered that I gave these kids the tools that they'll use their whole lives and when I know they can come back to me because I had a gymnast a fever grinnell I'm gonna say that because she is also from this community who came back to me one day knocked on my door and said thank you for everything I had ever done for her and it was such an incredible moment in my life because that's what I want I want to know I made a difference in my
personal life I want to be known that I was a person who lived with integrity who was kind and who was committed to those things and people in my lives that were important