Marty Glickman - a Jewish sprinter on US Track Team in 1936 Olympics, Berlin

1936 纳粹奥运-让历史归回本相
Marty Glickman, An American Jewish Athlete

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1998年，Marty Glickman 和 Sam Stoller，两名美国犹太裔短跑运动员（4x100）在1936 年柏林纳粹奥运会上被临时替换以取悦希特勒的丑闻终被澄清。 历史被归回本相。 我期待有一天在中共专制被砸碎后，中国的历史与中国的体育史会逐渐归回本相。 --- 陈凯

In 1998, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, two Jewish athletes on American Track Team in the 1936 Berlin Nazi Olympics who were replaced suddenly to appease Hitler, were finally recognized as the victims of injustice, due to American sports authorities' weaknesses and immorality. History has finally been restored as it truly was. I can only hope that one day, after the Chinese communist regime is gone, Chinese history and Chinese sports history will finally be restored to their true facts and meaning. --- Kai Chen

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Dear Visitors:

I now paste these two articles here for you to read, so you can appreciate what is happening today. History is repeating itself right in front your eyes, unless you intervene to change the course.

Should we allow history repeat itself, without doing anything to prevent evil's triumph over the good? We as free individuals do have power to influence the outcome of the Beijing Olympics. 1936 Nazi Olympics with what came after that should not repeat itself on our watch.

I urge all of you to do whatever you can in your power to awaken people's conscience by appealing to their inner most moral faculty. Beijing Olympics will turn in our favor, rather than being used by the evil communist regime, if we all assume our own individual moral responsibility. I have the confidence that it will become the turning point in our fight against evil tyranny in China.

I thank you all for your effort and attention. Best. Kai Chen 陈凯

[size=24]OLYMPICS; Glickman, Shut Out of 1936 Games, Is Honored at Last[/size]

By GERALD ESKENAZI

Published: March 30, 1998

The United States Olympic Committee presented the broadcaster and former sprinter Marty Glickman with a plaque today in lieu of the gold medal it prevented him from competing for 62 years ago.

This marked the first time the U.S.O.C. has conceded that because he was Jewish, Glickman was kept off the 4x100-meter relay team that captured the event at the 1936 Games in Berlin.

In emotional ceremonies at the New York Jewish Sports Hall of Fame's annual presentations, the U.S.O.C. president, William J. Hybl, gave Glickman the Olympic committee's first Douglas MacArthur Award. General MacArthur was the U.S.O.C. president in 1927-28.

Although Hybl said he had never seen written proof that the U.S.O.C., which was headed in 1936 by Avery Brundage, had kept Glickman off to appease Adolf Hitler, Hybl said: ''I was a prosecutor. I'm used to looking at evidence. The evidence was there.''

Glickman recounted how, on the morning of the final trial heat, he and Sam Stoller, who was also Jewish, were told by their coaches that they would be replaced by Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, even though neither had practiced on the relay team.

''Jesse said, 'Let Marty run,' '' Glickman recalled after accepting the award from Hybl. ''But the coaches said, 'You'll do as you're told.' ''

The coaches, Lawson Robertson and Dean Cromwell, told the team members that the Germans had been hiding their fastest sprinters for the relays and the Americans had to counter with theirs. But the German relay team was composed of the same men who always competed.

Owens and Metcalfe teamed with Foy Draper and Frank Wycoff to win the heat by an astonishing 15 feet. The next day they repeated the victory to take the gold medal, also by a comfortable margin and in world-record time. Thus, the presumably slower Glickman and Stoller still would have been successful.

Hybl explained that the MacArthur award would be given in the future only by the U.S.O.C. president and that it is not necessarily an annual presentation.

''It will be done for circumstances which require recognition by the U.S.O.C..'' he said. ''The U.S.O.C. isn't going to be afraid to tackle things, to have wrongs corrected.''

The 80-year-old Glickman, who went on to a career as a radio and television broadcaster, becoming the voice of the Knicks, Giants and Jets, said of Hybl, ''It was really remarkable, what he said.''

Glickman, born in Brooklyn, is the last survivor of that group of sprinters. He said he tried to avoid being bitter. At the time, since he was only 18 years old, he said, ''I had a whole world ahead of me.''

Hybl said, ''I'm really proud of what the U.S.O.C. has done is this regard.''
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[size=24]Marty Glickman[/size]
(1917-2001)
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Perhaps the most famous of all modern Olympics was the 1936 "Nazi Olympics," held in Berlin. Hitler tried to use the Olympic Games to demonstrate the superiority of "pure Aryans" over nations that allowed Jews, blacks and other "mongrel" races to compete on their behalf. Jesse Owens and other African-American track stars embarrassed the Fuhrer by winning most of the gold medals in the men’s track sprints and relays, defeating their German rivals easily.

What is less remembered about the Nazi Olympics is the saga of two American Jewish sprinters, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller. The 18-year-old Glickman had been a track and football star at Syracuse University, while Stoller competed for the University of Michigan. The two young men made the U. S. Olympic squad as members of the 400-yard relay team. Glickman and Stoller traveled to Germany and prepared diligently for the relay race. The day before the race, however, with little explanation, the U.S. track team coaches replaced Glickman and Stoller with two other runners, Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, both African-Americans.

By Glickman’s own account, the last-minute switch was a straightforward case of anti-Semitism. Avery Brundage, chairman of the United States Olympic Committee, was an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler’s regime and denied that the Nazis followed anti-Semitic policies. Brundage and assistant U. S. Olympic track coach Dean Cromwell were members of America First, an isolationist political movement that attracted American Nazi sympathizers. Additionally, Cromwell coached two of the other Olympic sprinters, Foy Draper and Frank Wyckoff, at the University of Southern California and openly favored those two over Glickman and Stoller.

Glickman’s suspicions about the fairness of the relay team selection process began at the American Olympic team trials in New York, when he was told he placed fifth of the seven runners competing in the sprint finals. Finish-line photography was not yet in use at that time, but films of the race seem to indicate that Glickman actually finished third behind Owens and Metcalfe. The judges, apparently under pressure from Cromwell, placed Glickman fifth behind Draper and Wyckoff. As a result, Glickman was not one of the three sprinters entered in the 100-yard dash, a premiere Olympic event. Instead, Glickman and Stoller traveled to Berlin as part of the 400-yard relay team, each scheduled to run a 100-yard leg of the race.

As an 18 year old, Glickman was grateful to be going to the Olympics, even if he felt that he’d been robbed of his chance at a medal in the 100 yard dash. There was an effort made by some American Jewish organizations to convince the U. S. Olympic committee to boycott the Nazi Olympics, but Brundage prevailed and the team went. Glickman, like most American Jews, thought that the anti-Semitism he might encounter in Berlin would be no worse than what he faced growing up in Brooklyn. Like many Americans, Glickman had no inkling of the horrific fate awaiting German Jewry in the years after 1936.

Once in Germany, Glickman, Stoller, Draper and Wyckoff spent two weeks practicing as the 400-yard relay team. They were confident of victory. Then, on the day of the qualifying trials, head track coach Lawson Robertson told Glickman and Stoller that Owens and Metcalfe would be replacing them. To his credit, Owens protested to Robertson that Glickman and Stoller deserved to run. Glickman pointed out to Robertson that any combination of the seven teammates could win the race by 15 yards. Robertson replied that he would enter his four best athletes in the relay and that, in his judgment, Owens and Metcalfe were better than Stoller and Glickman. Robertson said his goal was winning, nothing more. Glickman turned to assistant coach Cromwell and said, "Coach, you know that Sam and I are the only two Jews on the track team. If we don’t run there’s bound to be a lot of criticism back home." Cromwell retorted, "We’ll take our chances." The American team won in record time as Glickman watched from the stands.

Glickman (who remained a close friend of Owens until the latter’s death) and Stoller were devastated by the decision. Stoller, age 21, announced his retirement from track competition but later recanted. Later that year he won an NCAA sprint championship. Glickman returned to college and became a football All-American. After a brief professional career in football and basketball, Glickman went on to become a distinguished sportscaster, best known as the voice of the New York Knicks and football Giants. Despite his later success, the disillusionment of the 1936 Olympics always loomed large for Glickman. He recalled returning to Olympic Stadium in Berlin in 1985 as part of a tribute to Jesse Owens. Glickman was surprised by his reactions. He told historian Peter Levine:

As I walked into the stadium, I began to get so angry. I began to get so mad. It shocked the hell out of me that this thing of forty-nine years ago could still evoke this anger… I was cussing...I was really amazed at myself, at this feeling of anger. Not about the German Nazis …that was a given. But the anger at Avery Brundage and Dean Cromwell for not allowing an eighteen-year-old kid to compete in the Olympic Games just because he was Jewish.

Glickman had been in Syracuse one year when he made the 1936 Olympic team. After he graduated in 1939, he joined the radio station WHN and by 1943 was its sports director. A long, distinguished broadcasting career followed. When the New York Knickerbockers were formed in 1946, Glickman was their radio announcer. Later, he was the National Basketball Association's first announcer for TV. He was the voice of the football Giants, for 23 years, of the Knicks for 21, Yonkers Raceway for 12, the New York Jets for 11. Glickman did pre- and postgame shows for the Dodgers and Yankees for 22 years; he broadcast track meets, wrestling matches, roller derbies and rodeos, even a marbles tournament. NBC employed him as a critic and teacher of its sports announcers. In 1988 WCBS hired him for his second tour as the Jets' play-by-play announcer on radio. It was from that position that Glickman quietly said goodbye to his last audience in December 1992, at age 74.