Marty Glickman: The New York Sports Legend Who Lost His Spot in the 1936 Olympics For Being Jewish

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2023

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting, on television and especially on the radio, garnered for him legions of fans who would not miss his play-by-play accounts. From the 1940s through the 1990s, he was as iconic a sports figure in town as the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle, the Knicks’ Walt Frazier, or the Jets’ Joe Namath.

In addition to the stories of how he became a master of American sports airwaves, Marty Glickman has also been remembered as a Jewish athlete who, a decade before he sat in front of a microphone, was cynically barred from running in a signature track event in the 1936 Olympics by anti-Semitic American Olympic officials. Glickman’s story underscores the complexities that faced his generation of American Jews as these children of immigrants emerged from their ethnic cocoons and strove to succeed in America amid challenges to their professional and social advancement.

To explore Glickman’s story is today’s guest, Jeffrey Gurock, author of Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Scott here with another episode of the History Unplugged Podcast.
0:08.0	For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York
0:11.8	Sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting on
0:14.6	television and the radio made him a hero for millions of fans of the Knicks, the Jets, and the Yankees.
0:19.9	Many of today's most famous sports casters were Glickman disciples like Marv Albert,
0:24.0	and he coined phrases like Swish and many today can still recite his descriptions of actions and
0:28.4	arenas and stadiums. But beyond his fame as a broadcaster,
0:31.1	he's also been remembered as a Jewish athlete who was cynically
0:33.8	barred from running in the 4 by 100 track event in the 1936 Olympics, when American Olympic officials
0:39.8	didn't want to embarrass Adolf Hitler by having a Jewish runner defeat his Aryan competition.
0:44.3	Today's guest is Jeffrey Gourock, author of Marty Glickman, the life of an American Jewish sports legend.
0:49.9	We look at his career, but beyond that, we look at how people from marginalized groups have
0:54.0	traditionally been able to find success whether through sports entertainment or
0:57.8	other avenues how the identity of what it means to be an American has evolved over
1:01.6	the 20th century and overall a story of triumph over adversity.
1:05.0	Hope you enjoy this discussion with Jeffrey Gourach.
1:07.0	And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for word from our sponsors.
1:19.0	Probably the most famous event in Marty Glickman's young life is the 1936 Olympics. He is slated to be on the 4 by 100 team,
1:28.0	which wins gold. But at the last moment he and another Jewish teammate are swapped out with Jesse Owens who famously goes on to win four gold medals in Berlin and another black teammate which humiliates Adolf Hitler and his claims of Arian supremacy or dashed.
1:45.0	But can you help us make sense of the story because for all of the anti-Semitism in 1930s America,
1:52.0	I think many would assume that it was far more anti-Black, but that's not the case with this particular event of the composition of the teammates who make the 4 by 100 team. So can you tell us what happens with this story and more broadly why it happened?
2:09.2	Well until what he calls the meeting a day before the 4 by 100 meter race scheduled to be in front of 80,000
	...

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