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Irving Mondschein, Track & Field

I. Mondschein

Irving “Moon” Mondschein, an Olympian and legendary former Penn track coach of more than two decades, died on June 5 at an assisted-living facility in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was 91 years old.

Mr. Mondschein attended NYU, where he was a track and football star. After his freshman year, he served in the US Army, then returned to NYU. He was a three-time Amateur Athletic Union decathlon champion and a two-time National Collegiate Athletic Association high-jump champion. He competed in the decathlon at the 1948 London Olympics, finishing in eighth place.

He coached the United States track and field team that competed in the 1950 Maccabiah Games, the Jewish Olympics, in Israel. He then coached Israel’s first Olympic track & field team at the 1952 Helsinki Games.

Mr. Mondschein was a head coach at Lincoln University before joining Penn as an assistant coach in 1965. Upon Penn Athletics Hall of Fame coach Jim “Tupp” Tuppeny’s retirement, Mr. Mondschein became Penn’s head track & field coach in 1979. He left Penn in 1987 and was an assistant coach for the 1988 U.S. Olympic team competing in Seoul, South Korea. He was a volunteer coach at Haverford College into his late 80s.

In 2014, in front of a large crowd of Mr. Mondschein’s family, friends and former athletes, Penn named its brand new, state-of-the-art throwing venue, the Irv “Moon” Mondschein Throwing Complex, in honor of one of the school’s most beloved track & field coaches.

Mr. Mondschein was inducted into the US Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame as well as into the NYU Athletics Hall of Fame, the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the New York Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

He is survived by his wife, Momoe; two sons, Brian and Mark; a daughter, Ilana; a sister, Roslyn Lampert; a brother-in-law, Stanley Lampert; two grandsons and one great-grandchild.
 

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