‘Voice of the Knicks’ Marty Glickman faced Olympic discrimination for being Jewish
nypost.comJesse Owens’ remarkable accomplishments at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin are unimpeachable: a record four gold medals won under the eye of Adolf Hitler, who was no doubt humiliated and infuriated by the black man’s achievements on his turf.But according to a new book, one of those medals — for the 4x100m relay — almost went to Marty Glickman, the man who was the voice of New York sports for decades.In “Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend” (NYU Press), author Jeffrey S.
Gurock explains how Glickman, then an 18-year-old student at Syracuse University, was scheduled to run the relay but was inexplicably pulled from the four-man team — along with fellow Jewish teammate Sam Stoller— and replaced with Owens and Ralph Metcalfe.Glickman had no doubt what had happened. “Only once in the 100-year history of the Olympics have any athletes who were fit and qualified not been allowed to compete for the American team,” he said later. “And that was the two Jews.”Despite public denials, it was clear that the American Olympic Committee (AOC) and its boss, Avery Brundage — a documented anti-Semite and Hitler appeaser — had decided that, while it had been awkward enough for the Fuhrer witness a black athlete dominating the Nazis’ Games, to have Jewish competitors standing on the winners’ podium would have been beyond the pale.“Brundage,” Glickman later said, “was an American Nazi.” Martin “Marty” Glickman was a one-off.
