Jews in Sports Part 2

Commentary by Dr. Gerhard Falk

        

American Jews in Sports, Part 2

 

Jewish Owners of Pro-Football Teams

Ten of the 32 American professional football team owners are Jewish. Arthur Blank, the founder of Home Depot,  is the owner of the Atlanta Falcons. Robert Kraft is the owner of the New England Patriots, the most successful team of the 21st century.

Mark Davis owns the Oakland Raiders. He inherited the team from his father, Al Davis ,who was the target of a great deal of anti-Jewish hate when he became the first Jew to own a football team.

Brian, Edward and Joe Glazer, the sons of Malcolm Glazer, own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which they inherited from their father, Malcolm Glazer.

Jm Irsay is the owner of the Indianapolis Colts. Irsay once told an interviewer that his mother was Polish-Catholic and that therefore he knew nothing of Judaism, but viewed himself Jewish nevertheless.

The Philadelphia Eagles are owed by Jeffrey Lurie. Lurie graduated with a doctorate from Brandeis University and is a movie producer in Hollywood.

Stephen Ross owns the Miami Dolphins. Ross is a tax attorney who bought 50% of the Dolphins in 2008. 

Steven Tisch is owner of the New York Giants. Tisch is a film producer and is known for his philanthropic (lover of humanity) interests.

Zygmunt Wilf owns the Minnesota Vikings. He is the son of Holocaust survivors who is associated with the family real estate business.

Basketball

Anyone who watches a basketball game in 2020 can easily be convinced that “white men can’t jump” and that there is a “natural” affinity between basketball and the Afro-American community. The phrase, “it is only natural” is common among all ethnic groups who believe that their activities, their interests, and their conduct is somehow “inborn” and that that  is also true of other subcultures. Yet, history and sociology tach that behavior is learned, so that there was a time when Jews, not Afro-Americans, dominated the basketball scene .That was true in the 1930’s and continued  until after the Second World War. Therefore, the City College of New York and New York University were the basketball powers of the day. Professional basketball was in its infancy and hardly gaining much attention as basketball and football were mainly college sports before television made professional sports the huge  success it is in the 21st century.

The  Basketball Association of America. which was the first group to promote  professional basketball, began its activities in the early 1930’s . The first man to score a basket in that league was Oscar Schechtman, a Jewish boy, born in Brooklyn in 1919.

In 1946, the first ever game of the Basketball Association of America, Schechtman made the first basket when the New York Knicks played the Toronto Huskies.

In 1949, the league became the National Basketball Association. Schechtman played 54 games for the Knicks in one season. Schechtman averaged 8.1 points per game. He ended his career with a 4.3 points average.

Schechtman played one more season in 1947-48 with the Paterson Crescents before retiring. He was named to the All NBA first team. He was then elected to membership in the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and the Long Island Athletic Hall of Fame and the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame.

Jordan  Farmar was born in Los Angeles in 1986. He represents a much later segment of Jewish basketball professionals than is true of Schechtman and Nat Holzman.  Farmar began playing basketball at age four because his father taught him the sport at that early age. He had a competitive spirit, as did both his parents.

Farmar began his basketball career in high school when he scored 54 points in a single game. As a junior, he averaged 28.5 points per game, 8 rebounds, and 5.9 assists. When he became a senior, he averagd 27.5 points and led his school to its first Los Angeles city title.

Farmar was then named The Los Angeles Times Player of the Year and the California Interscholastic Federation Player of the Year. Parade declared Farmar “All American,” Cal-Hi awarded him all states Honors, and he was declared California Jewish athlete of the year. He then played in the McDonald’s All America game.

Farmar enrolled in the University of California Los Angeles campus where he was named to the All Pacific first team. He was named National Freshman of the Year in his first year at UCLA, as he led his team in assists and free throws.

In 2006 at the NCAA Tournament, he led the Bruins to the National Championship against Florida. In 2006 he joined the Los Angeles Lakers, who drafted him when their scouts saw him achieve a 42 inch vertical leap. At his first professional game he, made 17 points and three assists in 30 minutes.

In April of 2007, Farmar was called by the Lakers to play against Sacramento. In seven minutes of play, Farmar scored four points and four rebounds.

In 2007, Farmar averaged 9.1 points, 2.2 rebounds, and 2.7 assists. Farmar had won two championship rings with Los Angeles when in 2010 he signed a three year, $12 million contract with the New Jersey Nets.

In 2011 Farma signed a one year contract with the Israeli Basketball League. There he won Europlayer of the Week honors.

In 2011, Farmar returned to the Lakers. Farmar has sponsored golf tournaments and raised money for numerous charities.

Few basketball players have achieved the record attained by Farmar.  There are and have been numerous Jewish basketball players who are adequate professionals, such as Zalofsky, Grunfeld, LaRusso, Stoudemire and Shays. 

Slats Zalofsky became a member of the Chicago Stags in 1946, the year in which the NBA was founded. He was then 20 years old and was a veteran of the U.S. Navy, having fought the Japanese during World War II.  Zalofsky was elected to the first four All NBA First Teams, leading the Association in scoring in 1947 and 1948. He made the All Star team in 1952. In ten seasons he averaged 14.8 points.

Ernie Grunfeld is an immigrant from Romania who came to the United States in 1964. He enrolled at the University of Tennessee and averaged 23.4 points and 6.6 rebounds in his four seasons with the Volunteers. He won the SEC Player of the Year award in 1977.

In 1977 he went to the Bucks, where he averaged 7.4 points and 2.6 rebounds in 893 games.

Grunfeld later worked for the Knicks in the front office as general manager. He created teams that made the NBA finals in 1994 and 1999, and stayed with the Bucks until 2003, when he became the Wizards’ president of basketball operations.

Rudy LaRusso was born in Brooklyn. Like Fiorello La Guardia, he had an Italian father and a Jewish mother. His basketball career started at Dartmouth College where he played on two Ivy League teams, winning conference titles in 1958 and 1959. He was called “Roughhouse  Rudy” for his bruising aggressive playing. In nine NBA seasons he averaged 16.9 points and 10.2 rebounds. He also made the NBA’s All Defensive team. He played in five all star games.

Arthur Heyman was born in New York City. College scouts fond him in high school, which led him to play for Duke University. He then embarked on a seven year professional career. He averaged 13.0 points and .7 rebounds in the NBA and ABA. With the Pittsburgh Pipers, he won an ABA title.

Heyman was a superstar in college. He was repeatedly physically attacked by opposing players, including Jewish players who sought to handicap his competition.

Heyman was All American three times and reached All American Honors in his senior year. He won Final Four Most Outstanding Player, even though his squad did not reach the title game.

Amare Stoudemire is a truly great athlete whose NBA achievements include six All Star games, an All NBA First Team election, an NBA  Rookie of the Year Award, an average of 18.9 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks with the Suns, Mavericks, Knicks, and Heat.

Dolph Schayes was born in the Bronx in 1928. He graduated from college with a degree in aeronautical engineering. In 1948, he was drafted by the Knicks, and later played for the Syracuse Nationals. He played 16 seasons for Syracuse, one in the NBL and fifteen in the NBA.  He then played for the Philadelphia 76’ers. He made six All State teams. In 1955, Schayes led the Nationals to an NBA title over the Pistons. Schayes finished his career with 18.5 points and 12.1 rebounds in fifteen NBA seasons.

Swimming

Any mention of achievements in competitive swimming must include Mark Spitz, who won seen gold medals at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich (München), Germany. Those Olympic games are also unforgettable because they became the scene of a murderous attack on the Israeli delegation.

Mark Spitz was born in Modesto, California, in 1950, the first of three  children of Lenore and Arnold Spitz. When he was two years old, his family moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, but returned to California four years later.

His parents enrolled him in a local swim club, which led to his winning one world age group record at age 17.This win was mainly due to having been trained by George Haines for  three years beginning at age 14. Then, during his high school years, he held the record for every stroke and every distance. At age 16, he won the butterfly at a national championship race. The next year he became known worldwide when he swam the 400 meter freestyle in 4:10.6 minutes.

In 1968, Spitz entered the Olympic competition in Mexico City.  He won two gold medals in the 4x1000 meter free style relay and the 4x200 meter freestyle relay. In January 1969, Spitz enrolled in Indiana University to train with swimming coach Doc Counsilman.

In 1977, Spitz won the James Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States. In 1972,  Spitz set a number of  world records during the U.S. Olympic Swim trials. He then became a member of the U.S. delegation to the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, which led to his astounding victories in seven competitions. He won the 200 meter butterfly in 2:00.7 minutes, the 2x100 freestyle relay, the 200 meter freestyle, the 100 meter butterfly, the 4x200 meter freestyle relay, the 100 meter freestyle, and the 4x100 m medley relay.

After Spitz had won seven gold medals, he was advised to leave Munich early in view of an event generally known as The Munich Massacre, when eleven Israeli athletes were taken hostage and later murdered by terrorists. Olympic authorities feared that Spitz would become a target for the terrorists because he was Jewish like the Israeli hostages. He was escorted out of Germany by U.S. Marines stationed in Germany.

After the 1976 Olympics Spitz retired from competitive swimming at age twenty-six. In 1999, he became the only aquatic athlete to be included in Sports Century: 50  Greatest Athletes.

When Spitz was 41 years old, a filmmaker offered him a million dollars if he succeeded in qualifying for the 1992 Summer Olympics. He was seconds slower than was required, and failed to be included in the US team.

Spitz is a member of several Halls of Fame. He is included in the International Swimming Hall of Fame, the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the United States Olympic Hall of Fame, the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame, the National Jewish Museum Hall of Fame, the Long Beach City College Hall of Fame, and the Indiana University Athletic Hall of Fame.

After his retirement from swimming, Spitz appeared on a Bob Hope Special on televison in 1972. In 1973, he appeared on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson and the Sonny and Cher show. He next appeared on Emergency,  and the Dean Martin Comedy Roast.

Beginning in 1976, Spitz worked for ABC Sports, including coverage of the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. In 1985 he appeared on TV in “Challenge  of a Lifetime,” and continued as a  broadcaster. At subsequent Summer Olympics he was a commentator at swimming events. Since then, Spitz has worked at his real estate company in Beverly Hills and his sailing hobby. In 2006,  Spitz narrated the film “Freedom’s Fury,” which was produced by Quentin Tarantino.

Spitz has appeared in numerous commercial advertisements selling milk, razors, and other products. In 2006 he appeared on TV in a show called “Shock,” and later appeared in a commercial for a testosterone supplement.

Mark Spitz has an estimated net worth of $20 million. He married Susy Weiner in a traditional Jewish ceremony in 1973. They have two sons. The family lives in Los Angeles , California.

American Sports

Sports are of great and lasting interest to Americans. This supports democracy, in that sports are open to all ethnic, religious, and racial subcultures living in the United States. Whatever prejudices may be associated with various “minorities” in the United States, sports are open to all. Whether football or basketball, tennis, or track and field competition, no one is excluded, all are welcome.

Sports has the additional advantage of allowing athletes of various backgrounds to meet one another and to learn “that all men and women are created equal” and that achievement, not ethnicity or relgion, count in the sports arena.

For the vast majority of Americans who cannot compete at the Olympic level, sports has the advantage of being a satisfying entertainment as fans identify with one or another team and enjoy supporting “their” team instead of assaulting one another. Indeed, sports contributes to ethnocentrism, a sociological term which deals with the tendency for all men to favor their family, their school, their ethnic subculture, and their country over that of others. As long as ethnocentrism is related to sports, it is indeed a harmless way of achieving self-identification. Ethnocentrism becomes dangerous oly when it serves extremists who fancy themselves  Übermenschen” or “supermen,” and  all others as “Untermenschen,” or “subhumans.”

Sports integrate people of all heritages and is an essential part of democratic living in the United  States. May it reign forever.

Shalom u'vracha.

Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including 30 books and 45 journal articles.

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