People of the Boot

Book excerpt: Jews have made a profound on-field and off-field contribution to just about every sport in Australia. Their feats have encompassed world championships, AFL premierships, Olympic selection and medals. Their legacies in sports administration and business are many: saved sporting codes, reinvigorated national competitions and mended the bodies of champion athletes. They have climbed Mount Everest and the major peaks of the world. Yet their stories of courage, resilience and ingenuity are largely untold. Until now. For the first time, leading journalists, writers and broadcasters have come together in this edited collection to share a new and compelling perspective on Australian Jews. People of the Book they have always been, but People of the Boot they are now too. Featuring the AFL peace team breaking barriers; Jessica Fox and Olympic glory; Michael Klinger's path to vindication; Sir Frank Lowy's soccer transformation; The Maccabiah Bridge collapse two decades on; St Kilda's 1966 yom kippur premiership; the moral fortitude of the NRL's Todd Greenburg; Larry Kestelman's hoop dreams; and much more...