Port Wash. teen scores against Alzheimer’s

The girls varsity soccer team at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington entered its final game of the season on Monday fighting for more than just a winning record.

The team, currently with five wins, four losses and one tie, is trying to meet a $10,000 fundraising goal for the Alzheimer’s Association, which it has worked its way toward one goal at a time.

Emily Rosenthal, the 17-year-old captain of the soccer and basketball teams and member of the lacrosse team at Schreiber, has enlisted the help of all of her teammates in her personal fight against the disease by setting up a website, http://www.alznyc.org/emilyrosenthal, where people can sponsor each goal or point the teams score in their respective seasons.

In February 2009, Rosenthal’s grandfather, Robert Furman, died after a battle with the disease.

“To see someone so close to you just deteriorate,” said Rosenthal, a senior. “It was really tough on me and my family.”

Rosenthal said her grandfather, whom she and her sisters called "Poppi," was a “brilliant” man who attended Brown University when he was 16 years old and then went on to Harvard Business School.

In his professional life, Furman, who lived in Manhattan, was a certified public accountant, a trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and a financial advisor, the latter of which he did until just a few months before his death.

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Rosenthal said it was difficult on her family to see such a vibrant mind begin to fade.

“I remember little things about it,” she said. “Like in the end, he didn’t remember where he worked. It’s just so hard to see.”

She started the fundraiser during the lacrosse season last spring and will continue it through the coming basketball and lacrosse seasons. Each dollar raised is donated directly to the New York City chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.

“Fortunately for us, she’s a great athlete,” said Lou-Ellen Barkan, president and chief executive of the organization’s New York City chapter. “And pretty popular.”

In two sports seasons, Rosenthal and her teammates have garnered about $8,600 in donations.

Barkan said the Alzheimer’s Association, the largest private nonprofit that funds Alzheimer’s research, funnels all donations directly to a committee of research scientists that, through a peer review process, identify young new scientists doing cutting-edge research on the disease.

But she said Rosenthal’s effort has achieved in an additional goal -- heightening awareness of the disease within a younger generation.

“We’re seeing a greater level of interest in Alzheimer’s disease and the impact it has on families,” Barkan said. “We are recognizing that as this disease becomes more pervasive as a result of the aging baby boomers, this is the generation that is going to pay the price.”