July 2, 2010 | 4:25 pm

Top 7 Jewish Sports Stories of the Decade

Posted by Jeremy Fine

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Today we bring you story number 6. If it were the late 90s this story would have been number 1, almost for sure. But the story was dying down by the year 2000, yet it was strong enough to put here at number 6.

In the late 90s Tamir Goodman did for basketball what Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg did for baseball. He turned it into a Jewish phenom. There wasn’t a Jew who didn’t know of Tamir Goodman. Labeled the “Jewish Jordan” by Sports Illustrated he found himself on magazine covers and television shows.

But eventually the “Jewish Jordan” turned out to be more like the “Jewish Sam Bowie”...and that is even stretching it. By 2000 Goodman was no longer holding a scholarship to then top program Maryland. He was reduced to going to Towson University. There he found little success on the court. After a little more than a season Goodman moved to Israel. He began playing in the Holy Land for several years on a few teams.

This year he announced his reitrement from the game of basketball. Goodman’s career never lived up to the hype. But Goodman brought many Jewish fans to the game of basketball. He still works on getting kids excited about basketball and helping them realize they do not have to choose between the ball and their tefillin.

And Let Us Say…Amen.
-Jeremy Fine
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