“Cradle of Champions”

[Where Are They Now]

“Cradle of Champions,” a new book focusing on significant events, important figures and outstanding achievements in the history of San Mateo County athletics, is now available.

The book, which is sub-titled “A Selected History of San Mateo County Sports,” is authored by John Horgan, a career journalist who has spent 60 years writing about the county’s athletes, coaches, teams, administrators and others associated with competitive sports on the Peninsula and beyond.

“Cradle of Champions” features a trove of information in its 161 pages: 75 stories, 130 photos, 35 lists, 500 names, 40,000-plus words.

Those pages embrace copious statistics and data points involving a wide range of home-grown stars, including: Tom Brady, Tom Martinez, Wendy Brown, Bill Walsh, Mimi Arnold, John Naber, Pat Winslow Connolly, Dick Vermeil, Barry Bonds, Ann Kiyomura, Lynn Swann, Erik Van Dillen and a host of others.

The book, edited and published in concert with the San Mateo County Historical Association, also serves as a complement to the Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame, located at the county’s History Museum in downtown Redwood City.

“Cradle of Champions” is available for sale at the museum’s bookstore for $19.99.

It can also be purchased online at https://historysmc.org/online-store

All proceeds benefit the museum. Contact the museum at 650-299-0104 for more information.

 

[colhenrylives]

A story involving two former mid-Peninsula athletes from the 1950s, Robert Stirm and Mel Moore, who wound up being shot down over North Vietnam in separate U.S. military incidents during the war there in the 1960s, then spending five years being isolated, starved, tortured and humiliated by their NVA captors, is of particular poignant interest. Competitive athletes and the games they play: Their relevance extends well beyond the turf, track, gym and pool.