Irving "Moon" Mondschein (February 7, 1924 – June 5, 2015) was an American

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping even ...

athlete and

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, Kick (football), kicking a Football (ball), ball to score a Goal (sport), goal. Unqualified, Football (word), the word ''football'' normally means the form of football tha ...

player.

Personal life

Mondschein, who was Jewish, was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He attended Boys High School, where he ran track. He also ran for the New York Pioneer Club. He entered the US Army in 1943. He became a member of the

Pi Lambda Phi Pi Lambda Phi (), commonly known as Pi Lam, is a Fraternities and sororities in North America, social fraternity with 145 chapters (44 active chapters/colonies). The fraternity was founded in 1895 at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Pi ...

fraternal organization while attending

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, t ...

His son, Brian, was a world-class decathlete in the 1980s. His grandson, also named Brian, was an All-American pole vaulter at

Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also has educational facilities in six re ...

Decathlon, high jump, and football career

He was AAU

decathlon The decathlon is a combined event in athletics consisting of ten track and field events. The word "decathlon" was formed, in analogy to the word "pentathlon", from Greek δέκα (''déka'', meaning "ten") and ἄθλος (''áthlos'', or ἄ� ...

champion in 1944, and in 1946 and 1947. He won the 1944 Olympic Trials and would have been the top American representative had the Olympic Games been held that year. He was NCAA

high jump The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern, most-practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat f ...

champion in both 1947 and 1948, competing for

. As of 2015, he still held NYU's record in the outdoor high jump—6 feet, 7¾ inches. He also played football as an end for NYU in 1946, earning All-East honors. He competed in the 1948 Olympics for the United States in decathlon, coming in eighth, as teammate Bob Mathias won the gold medal. In his career, he was ranked third in the world in outdoor high jump and tenth in the decathlon in 1947; sixth in the indoor high jump and eighth in the decathlon in 1948; and third in the outdoor high jump and sixth in the decathlon in 1949.

Coaching career

He later coached track, basketball, and football at Lincoln University in

Oxford, Pennsylvania Oxford is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. Oxford is the closest town to Lincoln University. The population was 5,733 at the 2020 census. History The borough was once called Oxford Crossing and Oxford Village during the ...

, starting in 1949. He coached the US track and field team at the 1950 Maccabiah Games, which included Olympian Henry Laskau (national champion and world record holder) who won a gold medal in racewalking, and was also an advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Education, helping for two years to prepare the country's athletes for the 1952 Olympics. Irv was also athletic coach (Track) at Lawrence High School, Cedarhurst, NY ( Nassau County) from 1963-65. He was then a coach at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

; first the assistant track coach (1965–79) and then the head coach (1979–87). He was also an assistant coach on the 1988 U.S. Olympic team. He was previously an assistant coach at Kutztown University, and also volunteered as an assistant coach at

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), began accepting non-Quakers in 1849, and became coeducational ...

. He also served as an assistant coach at

La Salle University La Salle University () is a private, Catholic university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The university was founded in 1863 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools and named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle. History L ...

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. Sin ...

Honors

He is a member of the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the New York Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and the

National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame The National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, in Commack, New York, is dedicated to honoring American Jewish figures who have distinguished themselves in sports. Its objective is to foster Jewish identity through athletics, and to commem ...

. He is also a member of the NYU Athletics Hall of Fame, and the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

Head coaching record

Football

References

External links

University of Pennsylvania profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mondschein, Irving 1924 births 2015 deaths American football ends American male decathletes American male high jumpers Athletes (track and field) at the 1948 Summer Olympics Lincoln Lions football coaches Lincoln Lions men's basketball coaches NYU Violets football players Penn Quakers track and field coaches College men's track and field athletes in the United States Olympic track and field athletes of the United States United States Army personnel of World War II Boys High School (Brooklyn) alumni Sportspeople from Brooklyn Coaches of American football from New York (state) Players of American football from New York (state) Basketball coaches from New York (state) Track and field athletes from New York City Jewish American sportspeople 21st-century American Jews