Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame
Relive It All Again
Staten Island’s first great all-around athlete, Oscar Michaud pitched an 11-inning one-hitter for Curtis High School, outscored entire teams in basketball, and was the single-wing quarterback and signal-caller for the football team.
Following his high school career, Michaud expanded his basketball horizons playing with Casey’s Big Five and barnstorming with the New York Nationals.
Hank Majeski, one of the best defensive third basemen of his generation, hit .279 in 13 big-league seasons, most of it with the Philadelphia Athletics and Cleveland Indians.
In addition to twice leading the American League in fielding, Majeski hit.310 and drove in 120 runs for the 1948 Athletics, and hit a pinch-hit home run for the Indians in the 1954 World Series.
Rich Kotite was a head coach for the New York Jets and Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League, guiding the Eagles to 10 and 11-win seasons in 1991 and 1992.
A Little All-American at Wagner College, where he was the star of an undefeated team in 1964, Kotite played six NFL seasons as a tight end for the Vikings, Giants and Steelers, before embarking on a 20-year coaching career.
George Bamberger had two stints as manager of the Milwaukee Brewers, sandwiched around a brief stint with the New York Mets; but he was best known as the pitching coach of the Baltimore Orioles.
After appearing in 595 games as a pitcher – all but 10 in the minor leagues – Bamberger spent a decade in Baltimore, where he tutored 18 20-game winners and four Cy Young Award winners.
Abel Kiviat, the outstanding middle-distance runner of his time, won gold and silver medals at the 1912 Olympic Games.
A nine-time national champion at distances from 600 yards to the mile, Kiviat broke his own 1,500-meter world record three times in 13 days, and his mark of 3:55.8 stood for six years. He remains the only runner to win national championships at 600 and 1,000 yards on the same night.
The 1912 1,500-meter final at the Stockholm Olympics, in which Abel Kiviat was beaten for the gold by Britain’s Arnold Jackson, marked the first time photos were used to determine the order of finish in an Olympic race.
