Albert Hall (athlete)
Al Hall (c. 1934 - October 9, 2008) was an American hammer throw champion, who competed in the Olympics on four occasions.
Hall grew up on the family's farm in Hanson, Massachusetts, where he built up his physique using a set of weights he had constructed from concrete cylinders.[1]
Hall attended Whitman High School (now part of Whitman-Hanson Regional High School), where he was a running back on the school's football team and became an active participant on the track team during his senior year. Hall graduated from the school in 1952.[1]
He attended Cornell University where was the intercollegiate heptagonal track and field champion on three occasions, He set multiple meet records at major events and was captain of the 1955-56 Cornell team, winning recognition as Athlete of the Year that season by The Cornell Daily Sun.[1]
Hall finished in first place at the US Olympic Trials in 1956, and came in fourth place, just short of a medal, at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. He finished first again at the 1960 US Olympic Trials and competed at the 1960 games in Rome. He was the United States national hammer champion in 1962 and 1963, and was part of the first American track and field teams to compete in the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and China in 1974. He was part of the United States team at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo and at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. Hall fell inches short of making the U.S. team for the 1972 Olympics, despite a personal best throw of 222 feet, 8 inches at the Olympic trials.[1]
In 2004, the Whitman VFW Post 697 established the Albert W. Hall Award, a cherry wood trophy with an Olympian on top, which is presented each year to a male and female student-athlete at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School who exemplify the qualities of teamwork, dedication, and perseverance.[1]
He met his wife, the former Lorraine Lorey, in Fort Lee, Virginia, when Hall was a lieutenant in the United States Army and she was a sergeant in the Women's Army Corps.[1]
Hall died at age 74 on October 9, 2008 in Tonopah, Nevada of complications from Alzheimer's disease.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Pave, Marvin. "Al Hall, 74; four-time Olympian in hammer throw was from Hanson", The Boston Globe, October 17, 2008.
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