Sam Balter

Sam Balter was a pioneer in the field of sports broadcasting. He had the first coast-to-coast radio sportscast and televised the first football game in the Southern California area as well as baseball and basketball games. He was a newscaster during WWII and was the independent radio pool correspondent for the birth of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. Along with a nightly sports program a daily sports newspaper column he was cast in frequent movies in like roles. But all these activities took a back seat to his most treasured sobriquet: Olympian. He was a gold medal winner in basketball in the 1936 Hitler Olympics. And he was a Jew.