Evening star. [volume], November 18, 1956, Page 8, Image 177

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
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Sports-minded young Turks took immediately to o fast brand of basketball. As mentor of the
game, Sam stayed 11 months in Istanbul to produce a champion aggregation of bosketballers.
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With a Turkish school teacher (left). Sam went out of his way to emphasize international
friendship and good wiN, like showing youngsters the English equivalents for words.
8
INI SUNDAY STAI MAGAZINE. WASHINGTON. 0 C. NOVEMSEI It. 1*36
Continued from Preceding Page
“They rolled out the red carpet when I arrived at the
Istanbul Airport last November," Sam recalls. “Two Turkish
officials spotted me (how could anyone miss his 6-foot
4-inch 240-pound frame?), rushed up with arms full of
bouquets and kissed me on both cheeks.”
Sam talked basketball and the American way of life
to more than 618,000 adults and youngsters in 160 schools,
universities and athletic clubs in five cities.
At the drop of a fez, he held off-the-cuff seminars on
American and Turkish culture and friendship. (He soon
learned the language in the Turkish-American School In
Ankara.) Since, he says, much Turkish gossip starts In
cabs, he formed the Taxi Club to give drivers the proper
slant on America the Beautiful. He spoke on Radio Istanbul
and the Voice of Turkey. He even taught in orphanages.
Soon, he was asked to address the General Assembly.
Vail Gokay, Governor of Istanbul, presented him his
country's Medal of Honor with these words: “You will be
a friend of Turkey always. You have brought Turkey and
America closer together!”
Sam arranged tournaments between North Atlantic
Treaty Organizations and American Mission teams and his
Turkish cagers. He took Turkey’s all-stars and molded
them into a high-scoring, 15-man national team. This
group played other European teams. In Belgrade, Sam
was asked to hold a clinic for players, coaches and referees
from Red satellite nations attending the game. “I told
them,” he recalls, “that sports develop better citizens
because they teach co-operation, courtesy, discipline, and,
most important of all, democracy. I hit the last word hard,
and, by gosh, they listened intently!”
Only one misunderstanding marred Sam’s stay among
the Turks—and he laughs when he tells about it.
“My wife Gerrie (a former New York model and Broad
way actress) and our two kids (Alan, 5, and Ira, 3) had
just joined me in Turkey,” Sam explains. “While riding
in a cab, I gave my wife a peck on the cheek. All heck
broke loose. The cabbie stopped the car. Cops came
a-running. A policeman who knew me pushed us politely
but firmly into another cab and told me to go home. How
was I to know it’s against custom to put your arm around
a woman in a cab?”
A Turkish friend summed up the results of Sam’s
assignment:
“You know, Sam, in some countries, Americans often
see written on a wall, 'Yankee go home.’ Now that you’ve
planned to return home, the cry Is, ‘Sam, please stay’”
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Basketball and baseball, too, mode inroads on the sports
field which had been all soccer. Sam holds batting practice.