Our Jews in Sports Collection at the American Jewish Historical Society was established with the papers of Marty Glickman. Glickman was a footballer, an Olympic track and field runner, friend of Olympian Jesse Owens, and legendary sports broadcaster. Marty was very much into highlighting Jews in sports, and with his encouragement, the AJHS has collected over 180 items relating to Jews in baseball, football, track and field, basketball, boxing, soccer, wrestling, hockey, swimming, and the Olympics from players like Hank Greenberg, Ray Arcel, Moe Berg, Herb Brown, Al Davis, Kerri Strug, Sandy Koufax, Lenny Krayzelburg, Dolph Schayes, Dan Schayes, and Thelma Eisen.
With football season well underway we wanted to take a moment to highlight the Jewish football players found in our collections. In addition to renowned players Allie Sherman (1923-2015; quarterback, running back, defensive back and coach), and quarterback Sid Luckman (1916-1998) we also found references to clubs, recreational teams, and correspondence about the sport.
Sherman was interviewed for our Jews in Sports Dinner in 2000 and we have recently digitized the three-hour interview conducted with Sherman from the event. Below is a short excerpt taken from that interview, the full three hours can be viewed here. Sherman played fifty-one games in six seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles (both in the farm league and professionally) from 1943-1947 but is best known for his work as a football coach in Canada and with the New York Giants (1961-1969) and as a sports broadcaster. With the Giants, Sherman led the team to three Eastern Conference titles and was voted NFL Coach of the Year in back-to-back years, 1961 and 1962, though the Giants did not win under his leadership after 1963. After his coaching career, Sherman had a long career as a broadcaster for Warner Communications, developing some of the first cable sports shows. Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York City made Sherman the president of the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation, known as the “OTB.” During his tenure, Sherman revitalized the organization, which had become known as dirty dens for gambling and bookies. On a personal note, it was Marty Glickman who introduced Sherman to his future wife.
Sid Luckman was also celebrated at the AJHS Jews in Sports Collection, and while we do not collect many trophies and awards, two of Luckman’s awards are in the museum collection, a September 1965 National Pro Football Hall of Fame statue, and his 1986 Quarterback Hall of Fame Award, presented to him by the Quarterback Club of Washington, D.C. We also have an autographed photo of Luckman in his “42” jersey.
Luckman had a long career in football, playing for the Chicago Bears from 1939-1950 and won four NFL championships during the 1940s. Sportswriter Ira Berkow wrote that Luckman was “the first great T-formation quarterback,” while others have called Luckman, the “greatest long-range passer of his time.” Luckman was born in Brooklyn, playing both baseball and football at Erasmus Hall High School, going on to Teachers College at Columbia and played football at Columbia College even though he could not fully be admitted to Columbia University. He was drafted by “da Bears” and played his entire career with them. When he retired, he became VP of the club, but eventually worked for a Chicago manufacturer of cellophane products.
Upon searching the AJHS collections for more references of football it was delightful to uncover photos of a friendly rivalry game between two Jewish orphan organizations of the 20th century, the New York (NYHOA) and Brooklyn (BHOA) Hebrew Orphan Asylums. We could not quite figure out who won the Thanksgiving Day game at Lewisohn Stadium in 1938, but we suspect it was the New York HOA, since the NYHOA was graced with two photographs and no photo of the BHOA team could be found. The Hymen Bogen Collection regarding the HOA contained a list of the players from that game, while the NYHOA collection contained the photographs.
Lastly, we focus back on quarterbacks, from the previously mentioned sportswriter, Ira Berkow, whose collection is located here at the American Jewish Historical Society. Berkow’s collection is a mixture of correspondence from famous sport people and writers and includes this wonderful photo of Berkow with quarterback Joe Namath and a letter from former quarterback Fran Tarkenton regarding the quarterback position as the “most difficult position in sports, and most writers, fans, coaches and players just don’t get that fact.” We’ll let you, the football aficionado, be the judge of that.
Sources
Collections
I-42 Hebrew Orphan Asylum of the City of New York Records, Box 89, Folder 4. American Jewish Historical Society. https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/3/resources/18297
P-767 Hymen Bogen Collection, Box 5, Folder 9. American Jewish Historical Society. American Jewish Historical Society. https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/3/resources/15650
P-900 Ira Berkow Papers, Box 2, Folders 19 (Tarkenton) and 35 (Photographs). https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/3/resources/13280
Articles and Websites
“Allie Sherman,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allie_Sherman Accessed 10/1/2024.
American Jewish Historical Society. “Sid Luckman, Legendary Quarterback,” AJHS Website, 2010-2013. Accessed on the Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20120301010124/http://www.ajhs.org/scholarship/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=301
“Jews in Sports” Defunct Website, “Luckman, Sid.” https://www.jewsinsports.org/ accessed 10.2.2024
Zimmer, Daniel. Program Recap: Marty Glickman, the Life of an American Sport Legend. American Jewish Historical Society Blog. November 26, 2023. https://ajhs.org/program-recap-marty-glickman-the-life-of-an-american-jewish-sports-legend/ Accessed September 30, 2024.
