Sybil Koff
Personal information
Birth nameSybil Tabachnikoff
Full nameSybil (Syd) C. Koff Cooper
NicknameSyd
National team United States
Born1911
Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York City, United States
DiedMay 20, 1998 (85 years of age)
New York City, New York
Home townBrooklyn, New York City, New York
Alma materParson's Art School; Art Students League; Toledo University
Occupation(s)Artist and ceramist
Weight115 lb (52 kg)[1]
Children2 sons, Stephen and Ellis
Sport
Country United States
SportTrack & field
Event(s)sprint, hurdles, broad jump, high jump, shot put, and triathlon
ClubMillrose Athletic Club and German-American Athletic Club
Achievements and titles
National finals80-yard hurdles US national champion (1940)
Medal record
Women's athletics
Representing  United States
Maccabiah Games
Gold medal – first place 1932 Israel 100m dash
Gold medal – first place 1932 Israel broad jump
Gold medal – first place 1932 Israel high jump
Gold medal – first place 1932 Israel triathlon
Gold medal – first place 1935 Israel 60m dash
Gold medal – first place 1935 Israel 200m dash
Gold medal – first place 1935 Israel 400m hurdles
Silver medal – second place 1935 Israel broad jump

Sybil C. Koff, known primarily as Syd Koff, born Sybil Tabachnikoff, later known as Sybil Cooper (1912 – May 20, 1998) was an American sprinter, hurdler, broad jumper, high jumper, shot putter, and triathlete.[2][3][4] She competed in the 1932 Maccabiah Games in Mandatory Palestine, winning four gold medals, and at the 1935 Maccabiah Games, winning three gold medals. She was the 1931 New York metropolitan champion runner, won the 1935 200m Metropolitan Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) title, won the 1936 running broad jump Women's Metropolitan Championship, and was the 1940 80-yard hurdles US national champion. She qualified for the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in the broad jump and high jump events, but boycotted the Games, as they were held in Nazi Germany. She also qualified for the 1940 Summer Olympic Games, but they were cancelled during World War II.

Biography

Early life

Koff was born on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, New York City, to Russian immigrants, and was Jewish.[5][6][7] She grew up in Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, New York.[8] She attended Washington Irving High School and then New Utrecht High School, from which she graduated in 1929.[9][10] She also studied art at Parson's Art School, the Art Students League, and Toledo University.[11][12]

Track and field career

As background, starting in 1914, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) had barred women athletes from competing in events that it sponsored.[13] In 1922, the Metropolitan AAU in New York City approved a program of sanctioned events for women, but still barred them from running events over one-half mile, because the events were considered too strenuous.[14] The reason given was that if a woman were allowed to run more than a half-mile, she would put her reproductive health at risk.[15][16][17]

When Koff was a girl, to compete in running she had to sneak out of her parents' house to compete against their wishes in high school and amateur track and field competitions.[18][19] In 1930, after seeing her practicing the broad jump on the sand in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, a member of the Millrose Athletic Club convinced her to join the club.[19][11]

She was the New York metropolitan champion runner in 1931.[12] In 1932, Koff won national championships in low hurdles and broad jump.[11]

Koff competed in the 1932 Maccabiah Games in Mandatory Palestine, when she was 19 years old, leaving New York for Plymouth on the SS Majestic, and then sailing in a later leg of the trip on the SS Patria.[20][12][8][21] She carried the American flag in the Game's opening ceremony.[22] She won gold medals in the 100m dash (in front of a crowd of 25,000), the broad jump, the high jump, and the women's triathlon (consisting of the 100 m dash, broad jump, and shot put).[23][24][25] Focus on her was so great that after the Games, young women in Tel Aviv began to wear berets at a "jaunty angle," as she was given to doing.[26][27] She stayed in Palestine for two years, working at finding pottery shards for King George V.[28]

A 1934 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described Koff as follows: "... you would never believe Syd Koff to be a sprinter and jumper. ... although tall and exceedingly well built, [she] is pleasant looking and indeed quite attractive. She lacks the hard features so commonly associated with the female athlete."[11] Two years later, an article in the same paper observed: "Syd Koff is one of those pleasant creatures who would rather conquer the world all by her pleasant self than stay home and do the dishes."[29]

Koff won the 1934 Kings County High Jump Championship.[11] In 1935 she won the 200m Metropolitan AAU title.[20]

In a meet in February 1935 at the 102nd Engineers Armory in New York City held to assist in the picking of those who would represent the United States at the 1935 Maccabiah Games, Koff won gold medals in the 80m low hurdles, the 100m dash, and the running high jump.[30] She competed for the German-American Athletic Club.[30][31][32] She had wanted to also compete in the 60m dash and the 8-pound shot put, but AAU rules restricted her to competing in a maximum of three events.[33]

Koff competed in the 1935 Maccabiah Games in Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine.[30] She and the other American athletes traveled to Palestine on the SS President Roosevelt, a trip which took three weeks and which included legs traveled by train, donkey cart, and camel.[26]

At the 1935 Maccabiah Games, Koff won gold medals in the 60m dash, the 200m dash, and the 400m hurdles, and won a silver medal in the broad jump.[20][12][34] After the Games concluded, she remained in Palestine to give "herself a few more weeks to decide whether she would stay permanently."[35]

In 1935 The American Hebrew referred to Koff as the "leading Jewish girl athlete of the year."[20] On May 6, 1936, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran an article on her entitled: "Syd Koff – Bensonhurst’s One-Girl Track Team."[36] The Jewish Press named her to its 1935 Honor Roll of Jews in Sports, along with among others baseball player Hank Greenberg, boxers Barney Ross and Bob Olin, fencer Helene Mayer, tennis players Henry Prusoff and Maud Rosenbaum, golfer Herman Barron, football players Izzy Weinstock and David Smukler, and ice hockey player Alex Levinsky.[37]

In June 1936, Koff competed in the Women's Metropolitan AAU Track and Field Championships in Castle Hill Park in New York City.[38] She won the running broad jump, and finished second in the 50m dash.[38][39]

Koff qualified for the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in the broad jump and high jump events.[40][20][12] She did not compete, as she joined other Jewish athletes including American 1932 Olympic champion discus thrower Lillian Copeland, American hurdles world record holder Milton Green, and American swimmer Charlotte Epstein who boycotted the Games, as the Games were held in Nazi Germany.[12][41][42]

In August 1938, Koff came in fourth in the women's 80-yard hurdles 1939 US national championship at the AAU Outdoor Women's Track Championships in Naugatuck, Connecticut.[43] In September 1939, Koff came in second in the women's 80-yard hurdles 1939 US national championship at the AAU Outdoor Women's Track Championships in Waterbury, Connecticut.[43]

In July 1940, Koff won the women's 80-yard hurdles 1940 US National Championship at the AAU Outdoor Women's Track Championships in Ocean City, New Jersey.[20][44]

She also qualified for the 1940 Summer Olympic Games.[20][12] Koff missed competing in those Olympic Games as well, as in 1940 Russia bombed the Olympic stadium in Helsinki, Finland, and the 1940 Olympics were cancelled.[12]

Later life

Koff later lived on the Lower East Side, and then in Greenwich Village, New York City, and Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, where she was an artist and ceramist.[3][1] She married and had two sons, Stephen (who in 1966 became the intercollegiate pocket billiards champion, and later became a sculptor and artist) and Ellis (who became a mathematical physicist).[19][1][21] From the 1960s until she broke her hip in 1972, she competed in track and field in the Masters’ division.[19] In 1984, she and her son Steve became co-owners of the Sybille Gallery of Art and Framing in Greenwich Village.[36]

Koff died in New York City at 85 years of age on May 20, 1998, from cardiac arrest.[12][19] She was survived by her sons Ellis and Steve.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Elizabeth Lips (April 28, 1948). "Olympic Hurdle Team Member Turns To Potter's Wheel and Ceramic Making". Brooklyn Eagle. p. 29.
  2. ↑ "Track Treats; Syd Koff Entered". Jewish Daily Bulletin. March 6, 1934. p. 15.
  3. 1 2 3 Brian Berk. "Sybil Cooper: The Passing of a Legend". The Jewish Post.
  4. ↑ Morris Weiner (August 7, 1934). "The Year in Jewish Sport". The Detroit Jewish News. p. 7.
  5. ↑ "Now in Production; Syd Koff; Bensonhurst's One-Girl Track Team". Steve Cooper Studios. 27 July 2010. p. 67.
  6. ↑ Marnie Winston-Macauley (2009). Yiddishe Mamas; The Truth About the Jewish Mother
  7. ↑ Bernard Postal, Jesse Silver, Roy Silver (1965). Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports
  8. 1 2 "Jewish Stars to Sail Tonight for Palestine". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. March 11, 1932. p. 14.
  9. ↑ "Girl Stump Speaker, 15, May Quit Art for Law Study". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. October 1928. p. 4.
  10. ↑ Jack Meehan (August 22, 1934). "A Lassie Who Became a National Champion in Two Years ..." Brooklyn Daily Eagle. p. 10.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Lou E. Cohen (August 22, 1934). "Syd Koff—She Suddenly Became An Athlete, and Rose to Champion". Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Joseph M. Levy (March 29, 1932). "JEWISH OLYMPICS OPEN IN PALESTINE; 25,000 Jam Stadium as First Event of Its Kind Gets Under Way in Tel-Aviv. MISS KOFF IS A VICTOR New York Girl Wins Semi-Final of 100-Meter Race – American Team Is Second in Relay". The New York Times.
  13. ↑ "A.A.U. Ban on Women. Female Athletes Barred from Competitions Sanctioned by Union" (PDF). The New York Times. January 18, 1914. As a result of the recent agitation to permit enrollment of women athletes in the ranks of the Amateur Athletic Union a mail vote has been taken on the subject with the result that the Union has decided by an overwhelming vote to refuse registration to women athletes in all sports and competitions controlled by the A.A.U....
  14. ↑ "Women's Program Is Ready For Vote. Met. A. A. U. to Pass on Rulings for Athletic Competition at Friday Meeting" (PDF). The New York Times. December 13, 1922. A standard programme for women's athletic competition in the local district will be adopted Friday night at a meeting of the Metropolitan A. A. U.'s Committee on Women's Athletics....
  15. ↑ Charles Butler (October 19, 2012). "40 Years Ago, Six Women Changed Racing Forever". Runner's World. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013.
  16. ↑ Jeré Longman (October 25, 2011). "A Leading Pioneer". The New York Times.
  17. ↑ Ikard, Robert W. (2005). Just For Fun: The Story of AAU Women's Basketball. Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas Press. p. 14. ISBN 9781610752220. OCLC 645941637. After World War I, the union endorsed elite female competition in track and field (1922)... In doing so, it turned 180 degrees from the attitude expressed by its president, James E. Sullivan, in 1910. Invoking an increasingly dated outlook, Sullivan had said his organization would not "register a female competitor and its registration committee refuses sanction for...a set of games where an event for women is scheduled."
  18. ↑ "Jewish Women in the Olympics – Syd Koff". Jewish Women's Archive.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 "Syd Koff (1912–1999)". Jewish Virtual Library.
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Tara Magdalinski, Timothy Chandler (2005). With God on Their Side; Sport in the Service of Religion
  21. 1 2 "Sybil Koff Cooper Recalls First Maccabiah Team in 1932". U.S. Committee Sports for Israel Newsletter. 1969. p. 47.
  22. ↑ Steve Jacobson (July 4, 1993). "Fun, Games & Hatred," New York Newsday.
  23. ↑ "MISS KOFF SCORES IN JEWISH GAMES; New York Girl Captures Three Final Events as Maccabiad in Palestine Ends. 25,000 WATCH CONTESTS Heymann, Flaksman and Schnelder, American Athletes, Also Are Victors at Tel-Aviv". The New York Times. April 1, 1932.
  24. ↑ "HAKOAH ALL-STARS IN ACTION TODAY; Will Face German Eleven in Good-Will Soccer Match at the Polo Grounds. NOTABLES TO BE PRESENT Mayor Walker Will Start Contest – Contestants in Jewish Olympics to Receive Medals". The New York Times. May 22, 1932.
  25. ↑ Canadian Journal of History of Sport, Volumes 16–17, 1985.
  26. 1 2 Ron Kaplan (2015). The Jewish Olympics; The History of the Maccabiah Games
  27. ↑ Michael Feldberg (2002). Blessings of Freedom; Chapters in American Jewish History
  28. ↑ "Ex-Track Star Running Strong". Ceramic Scope. February 1977. p. 58.
  29. ↑ Lou E. Cohen (April 6, 1936). "Syd Koff Will Try to Fill Iron-Man Role in National Championships". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. p. 20.
  30. 1 2 3 "HOFFMAN IS FIRST IN 400-METER RUN; Curb Exchange A.A. Star Leads Billig to Tape in Feature of Maccabiah Meet; Miss Koff Wins Three Events". The New York Times. February 28, 1935.
  31. ↑ Maribel Y. Vinson (March 3, 1935). "Women in Sports". The New York Times.
  32. ↑ United States Olympic Committee (1937). Report of the American Olympic Committee Games of the XIth Olympiad, Berlin, Germany, August 1 to 16, 1936. IVth Olympic Winter Games, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, February 6 to 16, 1936, page 154.
  33. ↑ "Girl Athlete Leads 200 in Team Trials; Miss Koff Winner of Three Events in Maccabiah Track Meet". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. February 28, 1935. p. 17.
  34. ↑ "HOFFMAN IS SECOND IN MACCABIAH SPRINT; Coates, New York Team-Mate Sixth in 200 at Tel-Aviv – Miss Koff Triumphs". The New York Times. April 5, 1935.
  35. ↑ "Deutsch Praises U.S. Athletes, Returning From Palestine Games; Maccabi Team, Home With Trophies of Successful Campaign, Welcomed at City Hall – Two Remain Abroad in New Jobs – Italian Boxers Arrive to Meet Chicago Amateurs". The New York Times. May 10, 1935.
  36. 1 2 "About". Sybille Gallery of Art and Custom Framing.
  37. ↑ Morris Weiner (September 27, 1935). "Banner Year for Jews in Sports". The Jewish Press.
  38. 1 2 Maribel Y. Vinson (June 22, 1936). "Miss Cottrell Triumphs Twice As German-American A.C. Wins; 16-Year-Old Star Leads Track Team to Victory by Taking Dash and Hurdles in Women's Metropolitan Championships – Miss Arden Sets High Jump Mark". The New York Times.
  39. ↑ "Jewish Athletes Makes Places on Olympic Teams". The Jewish Advocate. June 26, 1936. p. 18.
  40. ↑ David K. Wiggins, Gerald R. Gems, Linda J. Borish (2016). The Routledge History of American Sport.
  41. ↑ Robert G. Weisbord (2017). Racism and the Olympics
  42. ↑ Andrew Parker, Grant Jarvie, Nick J. Watson (2020). Sport, Physical Education, and Social Justice; Religious, Sociological, Psychological, and Capability Perspectives.
  43. 1 2 "History of US Nationals Results: 100 Hurdles – Women". Track and Field News.
  44. ↑ Bob Wechsler (2008). Day by day in Jewish sports history
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