Class of 1986
| 1986 Inductees | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1956 U.S. Olympic Men's Basketball Team Glenn Davis | Bruce Jenner Robert J. Kane | Debbie Meyer |
| 1956 U.S. Olympic Men's Basketball Team | |
|---|---|
| Richard Boushka, Carl Cain, Charles Darling, William Evans, Gilbert Ford, Burdette Haldorson, William Hougland, Robert Jeangerard, K.C. Jones, Bill Russell, Ron Tomsic, James Walsh. The 1956 Olympic basketball team dominated its competition, winning all eight of its games. The team averaged nearly 100 points a game, had an average victory margin of 53.5 points, and didn't allow an opponent within 30 points. The U.S. was led in scoring by center Bill Russell, who later led the Boston Celtics to 11 NBA titles, including one later that year. Russell joined the Celtics after the 1956-57 season had already started so he could compete in Melbourne. | |
| Glenn Davis | |
|---|---|
| Davis, like Edwin Moses two decades later, owned the 400-meter hurdles for awhile. In 1956, after becoming the first man to break the 50-second barrier at that year's Olympic Trials, Davis won the gold medal in Melbourne. In 1960, he doubled up on gold medals, as he defended his Olympic title in the 400-meter hurdles, and also ran a leg on the winning 4×400 meter relay team. | |
| Bruce Jenner | |
|---|---|
| Photo Courtesy of Getty Images | |
 | After placing 10th in Munich in 1972, Jenner won the tenth U.S. gold medal in Olympic decathlon competition in Montreal in 1976. Jenner's world record point total of 8,617 easily outdistanced his rivals, who included 1972 Olympic gold medalist Nikolai Avilov of the Soviet Union. He is the most recent U.S. decathlete to win an Olympic gold medal. |
| Robert J. Kane | |
|---|---|
| U.S. Olympic Men's Track and Field Manager, 1952; USOC Secretary, 1965-69; USOC Second Vice President, 1969-73; USOC Executive Vice President, 1973-77; USOC President, 1977-81 Kane served the USOC in many capacities over a period of 30 years, including as its president from 1977 to 1981. But perhaps his most important contribution to the U.S. Olympic movement was his conceptualization and development of the National Sports Festival, which later became the U.S. Olympic Festival. | |
| Debbie Meyer | |
|---|---|
| Meyer, then just 16 years old, won gold medals in the 200-, 400- and 800-meter freestyles at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. All three swims broke Olympic records, and Meyer became the first swimmer to win three individual gold medals in a single Olympic Games. Over the duration of her career, Meyer broke 20 world records. | |