Joseph Russell is a world class backgammon player from Memphis, Tennessee. He is a founding sponsor and the chairman of the board of directors of the U.S. Backgammon Federation. He organized and directed the first national collegiate backgammon championships on behalf of the U.S. Backgammon Federation. He was a teacher/coach for the UCLA backgammon team that won the national collegiate backgammon championship in 2011.
He is a former World Champion and Vice-World Champion. He was inducted into the Backgammon Hall of Fame in 2017. The backgammon titles he has won include:
Laverne Clarence "Verne" Gagne was an American amateur and professional wrestler, football player, wrestling trainer and wrestling promoter. He was the owner and promoter of the Minneapolis-based American Wrestling Association (AWA), the predominant promotion throughout the Midwest and Manitoba for many years. He remained in this position until 1991, when the company folded.
Laura Granville is an American former professional tennis player. During the two years she spent at Stanford University, she set the record for most consecutive singles victories with 58 and finished with an overall record of 93–3. Granville won the NCAA Championship in singles as well as the ITA Player of the Year in both 2000 and 2001.
Bradley Bert Rheingans is an American former Greco-Roman wrestler and professional wrestler. He was a member of the United States' Greco-Roman wrestling teams for the 1976 and 1980 Summer Olympics, as well as winning two gold medals in the 1975 and 1979 Pan American Games and a bronze medal in the 1979 World Wrestling Championships. As a professional, Rheingans co-held the AWA World Tag Team Championship one time.
Oswald "Ozzie", "Jake" Jacoby was an American contract bridge player and author, considered one of the greatest bridge players of all time and a key innovator in the game, having helped popularize widely used bidding moves such as Jacoby transfers. He also excelled at, and wrote about, other games including backgammon, gin rummy, canasta, and poker. He was from Brooklyn, New York and later lived in Dallas, Texas. He was the uncle of activist and author Susan Jacoby, as well as father of James Jacoby, an author and world-class bridge player in his own right.
Patrick Du Pré is a former professional tennis player from the United States.
Julie Heldman is an American tennis player who won 22 singles titles. In 1968 and 1969, she was ranked No. 2 in the U.S. She was Canadian National 18 and Under Singles Champion at age 12, U.S. Champion in Girls' 15 Singles and Girls' 18 Singles, Italian Open Singles Champion, Canadian Singles and Doubles Champion, and U.S. Clay Court Doubles Champion. She won three medals at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and three gold medals at the 1969 Maccabiah Games.
Paul Herbert Goldstein is a retired tennis player from the United States, who turned professional in 1998. He announced his retirement from professional tennis in February 2008, as he was starting working with a clean energy company.
Tom Billups is an American former rugby union rugby player, who played for the USA Eagles as an international and Blackheath Rugby Club, Harlequin F.C., and Pontypridd RFC as a professional. After retiring as a player in 1999, he joined the staff of the United States national team and was the head coach from 2001 to 2006. In addition to coaching the Eagles, Billups managed the U.S. national sevens team program and coached the 2005 U.S. sevens team. In 2015 Billups was inducted into U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame, and was the first person to be inducted as both a player and coach. In 2018 Billups became the 14th recipient of the Craig Sweeney Award which was first award in 1979 in memory of former United States national team member and captain, Craig Sweeney. The Sweeney Award is presented to a former national team player who has contributed significantly to the game while displaying exemplary character on and off the field.
Kit Woolsey is an American bridge and backgammon player. He was inducted into the ACBL Hall of Fame in 2005.
John Yocum Randolph Crawford was an American bridge and backgammon player.
William Eisenberg is an American bridge and backgammon professional. In bridge, Eisenberg has won five Bermuda Bowl world team titles and he won the backgammon world title in 1975. Eisenberg is World Bridge Federation (WBF) and American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) Grand Life Master. He lived in Boca Raton, Florida, as of 1994 and 1998.
Leslie Lyle Gutches is an American former wrestler and coach. His accomplishments include becoming a World Champion in freestyle wrestling at the 1997 World Wrestling Championships, the Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation's best college wrestler in 1996, becoming the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion in the 177 lb. weight division in both 1995 and 1996, earning All-American status in 1994, 1995 & 1996, becoming a member of the 1996 United States Olympics freestyle wrestling team and winning numerous other tournaments and honors.
Leroy (Lee) P. Kemp, Jr. is an American former freestyle and folkstyle wrestler. Kemp would achieve success at the high school, collegiate, and international levels.
Mikaela Parmlid is a retired Swedish professional golfer who played on the LPGA Tour 2004–10 and the Ladies European Tour 2011–14. She was runner-up in the 2012 UNIQA Ladies Golf Open, the 2013 Open de España Femenino, and the 2014 International Crown. As an amateur, she won the 2001 European Ladies' Team Championship and was the 2003 NCAA Championship team and individual champion, and received the Honda Sports Award as the top woman collegiate golfer.
Tricia Saunders is an American amateur wrestler and pioneer the sport of women's freestyle wrestling. During her freestyle wrestling career, she won five FILA Wrestling World Championships medals, including four gold and one silver, never lost to an American opponent, and won eleven U.S. national titles.
James Oswald Jacoby was an American bridge player and writer. He played as Jim Jacoby but he wrote books as James and for many years co-wrote a syndicated bridge column with his father as "Jacoby on Bridge" by Oswald and James Jacoby.
Harold William Manning was an American long-distance runner. He held the American record in the men's 3000-meter steeplechase from 1934 to 1952 and briefly held the world best in 1936. He represented the United States in the steeplechase at the 1936 Summer Olympics, placing fifth.
Edward K. Adams, known as Ed Adams, is an American sailor in the Star, Snipe, and Laser classes. He was named US Sailor of the Year in 1987 and 1991.
Stacy Margolin is an American former professional tennis player in the WTA tour and the ITF world tour from 1979 to 1987 whose career-high world singles ranking is No. 18. In her eight professional seasons, Margolin competed in a total of twenty-five grand slam championships, which includes several appearances at Wimbledon, the US Open, and the French Open. She won a gold medal at the 1977 Maccabiah Games in Israel.
Sharon Shapiro is an American former gymnast. She won five gold medals at the 1977 Maccabiah Games. In 1978, she was the U.S. National Champion in the vault. She was a two-time National Collegiate All-Around Champion. In 1981, she won the Honda-Broderick Award as the nation's most outstanding collegiate women's gymnast.