Frank Isaac Spellman (September 17, 1922 – January 12, 2017) was an American middleweight Olympic champion

weightlifter Olympic weightlifting, or Olympic-style weightlifting (officially named Weightlifting), is a sport in which athletes compete in lifting a barbell loaded with weight plates from the ground to overhead, with each athlete trying to successfully lif ...

. He won a gold medal at the 1948 Olympics, and a bronze medal and a

silver medal A silver medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, e ...

at the World Championships in 1946–47. He also won a gold medal at the 1950 Maccabiah Games. In the US, Spellman won the 1946 and 1948

Amateur Athletic Union The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It has ...

(AAU) National titles. He resumed competing in 1961 and won another AAU title that year.

Early and personal life

Spellman was born in

Malvern, Pennsylvania Malvern is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania. It is west of Philadelphia. The population was 3,419 at the 2020 census. The borough is bordered by Paoli Pike on the south, Sugartown Road on the west, Willistown Township on the east, a ...

, to Sara, an Austrian immigrant and seamstress, and David, a German immigrant and stone quarry foreman who died at forty-eight years of age, and was Jewish. He had four siblings. From the ages of seven to seventeen, he lived in the Downtown Jewish Orphan Home in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

; he subsequently lived in

South Philadelphia South Philadelphia, nicknamed South Philly, is the section of Philadelphia bounded by South Street to the north, the Delaware River to the east and south and the Schuylkill River to the west.Kevin Farley (January 12, 2017)
"Remembering Frank Spellman,"
teamusa.org. Drafted in 1942, Spellman served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

for three years during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. In 1944, he fought in the

Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in ...

. After returning from World War II, he lived in, and was a machinist in,

York, Pennsylvania York (Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Yarrick''), known as the White Rose City (after the symbol of the House of York), is the county seat of York County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in the south-central region of the state. The populati ...

. Employed by

York Barbell York Barbell is an American-based international manufacturer of fitness products. Bob Hoffman, named "Father of World Weightlifting" by the International Weightlifting Federation, bought the Milo Barbell Company and founded York Barbell in 1932. ...

, he represented the York Barbell team. In 1952, he moved to

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

, where he lived for eighteen years before relocating to Florida. In addition to weightlifting, Spellman was a professional photographer. He later lived in

Gulf Breeze, Florida Gulf Breeze is a city in Santa Rosa County, Florida. It is a suburb of Pensacola, and is in the Pensacola Metropolitan Area. The population estimate was 6,900 in 2020. Gulf Breeze is located just north of Pensacola Beach, and south of Pensaco ...

. Spellman died on January 12, 2017, at the age of ninety-four at Baptist Hospital in Gold Breeze. He had two brothers, Charlie and Harold, two sisters, Ethyl and Frances, and six children: Danny, Kevin, Katie, Yvonne, Larry, and Steve. In addition to photography, he had enjoyed woodworking and playing music as hobbys.

Weightlifting career

In 1942, Spellman won the US middleweight junior title in weightlifting. Spellman won a bronze medal at the

1946 World Weightlifting Championships The 1946 Men's World Weightlifting Championships were held in Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ...

. That year he set a new US middleweight record with a press of 257.75 pounds. He also won the US

(AAU) middleweight championship. He won a

at the

1947 World Weightlifting Championships The 1947 World Weightlifting Championships, Men's World Weightlifting Championships were held in Philadelphia, United States from September 26 to September 27, 1947. There were 39 men in action from 12 nations. Medal summary Medal table Refe ...

, and a silver medal at the 1947 US championships Spellman won a gold medal at the

1948 Olympics 1948 Olympics may refer to: *The 1948 Winter Olympics The 1948 Winter Olympics, officially known as the V Olympic Winter Games (german: V. Olympische Winterspiele; french: Ves Jeux olympiques d'hiver; it, V Giochi olimpici invernali; rm, V Gi ...

in Men's 75 kg Weightlifting when he was twenty-five years old, setting Olympic middleweight (165 pound) records in the clean & jerk (336.25 pounds) and the total lift (859.5 pounds). That year he set a new US middleweight record with a press of two hundred and sixty pounds. He also won the US AAU middleweight championship. In 1949 Spellman won the

North American North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Ca ...

middleweight title, and finished second in the United States championships. Spellman competed at the 1950 Maccabiah Games in Israel, and won a gold medal at middleweight. That year, he set a new American middleweight record with a press of 261.75 pounds. In 1951 he finished third in the US championships. In 1952, he finished second at lightweight in the US championships. In 1954, he established a new world record during the American squat championships with a squat lift of five hundred and ten pounds; he weighed one hundred and seventy pounds at the time. Spellman finished second in light-heavyweight during the American championships. Spellman resumed competing in 1971, at the age of forty-nine, and won his third national AAU middleweight title that year.

Halls of Fame

Spellman was elected to the United States Weightlifting Hall of Fame, the

Helms Athletic Foundation The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, was a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to the promotion of athletics and sportsmanship. Paul H. Helms was the organization's founder and benefactor, funding the foundation via his owners ...

Hall of Fame, and the Porterville Quarterback Hall of Fame. Spellman was inducted into the

International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame ( he, יד לאיש הספורט היהודי, translit=Yad Le'ish HaSport HaYehudi) was opened July 7, 1981 in Netanya, Israel. It honors Jewish athletes and their accomplishments from anywhere aroun ...

in 1983.Class of 2003/2004: Weightlifting
, Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Accessed February 2, 2011.

. Accessed February 2, 2011. In 1990, he was inducted into the

Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame The Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, in Beverly Hills, California, is a hall of fame dedicated to honoring American Jewish athletes, other sports personalities, and teams from Southern California who have distinguished themselves ...

. He was then inducted into the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in its class of 2003/2004. In 2011 he was inducted into the Chester County Sports Hall of Fame.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spellman, Frank 1922 births 2017 deaths American people of Austrian-Jewish descent American people of German-Jewish descent Sportspeople from Philadelphia Sportspeople from York, Pennsylvania Sportspeople from Santa Monica, California American male weightlifters Sportspeople from Chester County, Pennsylvania Weightlifters at the 1948 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for the United States in weightlifting Maccabiah Games medalists in weightlifting Jewish weightlifters Jewish American sportspeople Competitors at the 1950 Maccabiah Games Maccabiah Games gold medalists for the United States United States Army Air Forces soldiers United States Army personnel of World War II Olympic medalists in weightlifting Medalists at the 1948 Summer Olympics People associated with physical culture World Weightlifting Championships medalists 21st-century American Jews

Early and personal life

Weightlifting career

Halls of Fame

See also

References