Harry Blitman never won the world title, but he was one of many outstanding Jewish fighters in the 1920s and 1930s. Blitman was a smooth-boxing lightweight. His family was from North-Central Philadelphia but he trained out of Jimmy Coster’s gym in South Philadelphia. He was a teenage sensation and my dad knew him from their… Read more »
After a long career teaching and coaching basketball – starting at the age of 22 as the head coach at Overbrook High with Wilt Chamberlain – a Daily News reporter interviewed me and asked if I was ever going to coach basketball again. With tongue in cheek, I said that I would like to coach… Read more »
Like most Jewish fighters in the early part of the 20th century, Lew Tendler was tough as nails but he was scared of his mother. “My mom was against boxing,” Tendler once recalled. “One night I fought at a small club and got a shiner. I tried everything to get the swelling down before I… Read more »
My success as the Varsity Basketball Coach at Dobbins Tech is a result of the influence of a string of people starting from the time I was a youngster. Lou Pollock, my Physical Education teacher at Beeber Jr. High, was very important because he got me to think I wanted to become a Physical Education… Read more »
Renowned agent Tellem is Pistons’ community point man Auburn Hills – He left Los Angeles a crazy man. And now that he’s here in Detroit, Arn Tellem, once one of the most powerful and influential agents in sports, still finds he’s a bit of a conversation piece. “People want to meet me,” said Tellem, who… Read more »
Sam Cozen became the varsity basketball coach at Overbrook High School in the fall of 1948. Overbrook had won the Public League basketball championship the previous year, but there was only one starter remaining from that team. Luckily it was Jackie Moore, the 6″5″ center, who later went on to become the first African-American to… Read more »
How Red Klotz, 14,000-Time Loser, Beat The Harlem Globetrotters By Dave McKenna Red Klotz went out on a 43-year losing streak. The founder, owner, and longtime coach of the Washington Generals died over the weekend in Margate, N.J. He was 93. All the losses came to the Harlem Globetrotters. A very, very loose estimate of… Read more »
