Woodmere's Daniella Rothman plays with a smile and a heart

You could say it is because she is 5-foot-11 that Woodmere resident Daniella Rothman plays basketball. Or it is because her mother, Hilary, played in school and continues to show her hoops chops every Tuesday night competing against contemporaries or is it the one-on-one games she plays against her father, Eric.

All are part of it, but the missing pieces are her love of the sport and an inner toughness that helped Rothman, 20, endure three herniated discs that disabled her from April through roughly October of 2020.

“She’s a tough kid, a smiley kid with an inner drive, when it’s game on, it’s game on with a smile and a heart,” said Eric, who has pushed but not badgered his daughter through years of games. “Dad always tells me if I can get a rebound off of him, I can get a rebound off any girl in the league,” said Daniella, the starting junior center on the Yeshiva University Maccabee women’s team, which plays in the Skyline Conference.

“I’ve been playing my whole life since elementary school, training my whole life,” Daniella said, listing places such as Step It Up basketball camp and Hustle and Heart that runs clinics and camps.

She also played Police Activities League basketball and synagogue ball. “We put her where the basketball balls were,” Eric said. Valuing the time she plays with dad, she also looks to improve her game. “I’m just motivated from within,” she added.

That inner drive served her well when Daniella had to basically lie on the floor for six months and could barely sit or walk because of the herniated discs.

“My wife and I became her pit crew and actually had her visualize playing to stay sharp mentally during that rough patch,” Eric said.

A team captain for the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County girls varsity team, who twice earned most valuable player honors at the league’s All Star game in 2018 and 2019, she was also a Weiner Tournament First-Teamer twice and earned the Determination and Perseverance Award.

Daniella also earned a gold medal for Team USA at the 2019 European Maccabi Games.
“USA Maccabi was a wonderful experience,” she said, “through sports you make friends from all around the world.” Friends were made with the Germany, Great Britain, Israel and Spain delegations. Judaism and sports created deep connections, Daniella said.

Beginning slowly for the Maccabees in 2020-21, her first season of Division III basketball, Daniella did not score much, but showed her rebounding prowess with a then career-high 9 boards against Sarah Lawrence in one of the seven games of a Covid-abbreviated season. “It was painful coming back last season, I was really working through it,” she said.

This season she has taken off. Daniella notched her sixth double-double, with 10 points and a game-high 14 rebounds in the Dec. 9 game against Manhattanville. She collected a whopping 22 boards in the Nov. 18 game against Sarah Lawrence.

It is a conscious effort to score and want the team needs, under coach Bob Zatulskis. “It’s a little bit of both, she is very hesitant to shoot,” Zatulskis, noting that it is an adjustment for Daniella to shoot more, but she has, as her teammates confidence in her increased. “I really what that ball and I’m going to get it,” she said about her rebounding, which defines her inner drive to succeed.

Majoring in education and psychology, Daniella is considering elementary school teaching, possibly coaching basketball and/or being a child life specialist, a person who helps comfort hospitalized children. You just know those kids will rebound.