BY JANET MANDELSTAM While other 7- and 8-year-olds were chasing fly balls or reading comic books, Dennis and Jerry Clerkin were playing bridge. “That was our recreation,” says Dennis. “We started playing in our family when we were very young.” By the time they got to college, the brothers were reading books about bridge and “taking it very seriously,” says Dennis, who is a year older than Jerry. The two began playing tournament bridge together over 35 years ago and have never looked back. Those years of experience paid off in July 2010 when the Clerkin brothers, both Bloomington residents, won the American Contract Bridge League’s Grand National Teams Championship in New Orleans, a tournament in which they played 320 [...]
