TIME OF TITANS: GREEK ATHLETES IN NEW YORK CITY By Steve Frangos Published in The National Herald, June 17, 2006   ------------------------------ I am excited to announce that  The National Herald  has given Hellenic Genealogy Geek the right to reprint articles that may be of interest to our group.  ------------------------------ The history of amateur Greek athletics in New York City is still a matter of debate. This is especially curious since, from 1901 to the present, published accounts on the Greek amateur athletes of New York City abound. Many Greek immigrants joined local athletic clubs and gyms throughout the five boroughs. We will restrict our survey here to the Greek American Athletic Club of New York City. As far as available published accounts now report, the GAAC was, at least as of 1901, originally based in Brooklyn’s Ulmer Park. By 16 May 1913, however, the GAAC had moved to Manhattan. We know this, in par...

STEVE LAMONETIN:  TALES OF WRESTLING By Steve Frangos Published in The National Herald, October 28, 2017   ------------------------------ I am excited to announce that  The National Herald  has given Hellenic Genealogy Geek the right to reprint articles that may be of interest to our group.  ------------------------------ Steve Lamonetin was one of a generation of early Greek wrestlers who toured the United States. Beginning in the very early 1880s, professional Greek wrestlers were to be found, in ever growing numbers, all across the nation. Lamonetin, known in one newspaper account after another as the “Terrible Greek,” wrestled in a host of venues and circumstances. Lamonetin met challengers in opera houses, on vaudeville theater stages, in local parks or fair grounds, along carnival side show midways and elsewhere. During this early era wrestlers were rarely paid for their attendance. Rather the winner of the wrest...

A BRIEF SURVEY OF GREEK AMATEUR ATHLETICS IN NEW YORK CITY By Steve Frangos Published in The National Herald, June 10, 2006   ------------------------------ I am excited to announce that  The National Herald  has given Hellenic Genealogy Geek the right to reprint articles that may be of interest to our group.  ------------------------------ It must have been two years ago or  so. I was sorting through the sports documentation at Notre Dame when George Rugg, the special archivist in charge of the collection, came into the research area with a xerox in his hand. The always generous Mr. Rugg handed me the “Greek” entry from the “Encyclopedia of Ethnicity and Sports in the United States (George B. Kirsch et. al., editors, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut: 2000: 197-200).” I found the opening paragraphs by Nicholas Notaridis and Nick Koliarakis astounding: “The earliest record of organized Greek American ethnic sport...

NICHOLAS PROTOPAPAS: GIANT AMONG THE EARLY GRECIAN STRONGMEN By Steve Frangos, TNH Staff Published in The National Herald, March 24, 2017  ------------------------------ I am excited to announce that  The National Herald  has given Hellenic Genealogy Geek the right to reprint articles that may be of interest to our group.  ------------------------------ Nicholas G. Protopapas was among the earliest Greek strongmen to live and perform in the United States. A representative roster of these award winning Hellenic athletes would have to include Antonio Panay, Theodoros Yorgios Costaky, John Muhler, Anton Pierre, Panagis Koutalianos, and Demetrios Tofalos. By the mid-1870s, at the very latest, these men were appearing and performing feats of strength all across North American. It is no exaggeration to say that these men were the individuals the average American first saw as modern Greeks. Given that these Greek athletes toured the coun...