Int'l Jewish Sports Hall of Fame announces class of 2007
Honorees include Women's basketball star Nancy Lieberman and three-time Indianapolis 500 champion Mauri Rose.
By JPOST SPORTS STAFFbasketballs 88(photo credit: )
Women's basketball star Nancy Lieberman and three-time Indianapolis 500 champion Mauri Rose are among seven athletes and sportsmen who have been elected to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
The 2007 elections were announced by IJSHOF chairmen Alan Sherman and R. Stephen Rubin.
Lieberman, a three-time Old Dominion University All-American, Olympic and professional star was the third female elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, while Rose won the Indy 500 in 1941, 1945 and 1947.
The other honorees are: Hungarian 1958 French Open Singles champion Zsuza "Suzy" Kormoczy, who was 10 times ranked in the world's Top 10 between 1947 and 1961; Soviet/Russian Sabre fencing champion Eduard Vinokurov, Olympic gold medalist in 1968 and 1976 and five-time gold-medal winner at the world championships; and Matt Wells, World, British and Empire Welterweight boxing champion from 1914-1915.
Harry Simmons was chosen to receive the IJSHOF's 2007 Pillar of Achievement Award, along with United States' Olympic sprinter Sam Stoller.
Simmons was Major League Baseball's first official historian, named "King of Baseball" in 1979 by MLB executives. Stoller, along with another Jewish teammate, Marty Glickman, was removed from a scheduled relay event at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games to placate Adolf Hitler.
Since 1979, 321 athletes and sportsmen/women, representing 24 countries, have been elected to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. The IJSHOF Museum is located on the campus of the Wingate Institute for Physical Education and Sport in Netanya.
