The United States Olympic Hall of Fame is an honor roll of the top American Olympic athletes.
The Hall of Fame was established by the United States Olympic Committee in 1979; the first members were inducted in 1983. Between 1992 and 2003, the Hall of Fame went dormant, with no induction of new members. In 2004, the honor was revived, and continued in 2005 when the 'Class of 2006' was selected.
The current process for selecting inductees is two-staged. Fifteen finalists are selected by a nominating committee consisting of athletes, members of the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, historians and USOC representatives. The inductees were then selected based on online voting at www.usolympicteam.com, with a requirement to select five individual athletes, one team, one Paralympian and one coach. When the inductees are announced, a veteran and a "special contributor" are also included.
According to an October 2005 press release, 182 athletes, teams, and special contributors have been inducted as of that date. Another 10 inductees were added in 2006, and 14 more added in the 2008 class.
In the past the Hall of Fame has sought to construct a museum, but construction has not begun due to a lack of sponsorship.
Read more about United States Olympic Hall Of Fame: Inducted As Individuals, Inducted As Teams, Inducted As Coaches, Inducted As Contributors
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“The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity—an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“Canadians look down on the United States and consider it Hell. They are right to do so. Canada is to the United States what, in Dante’s scheme, Limbo is to Hell.”
—Irving Layton (b. 1912)
“Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)
“This is a Senate of equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not an arena for the exhibition of champions.”
—Daniel Webster (1782–1852)
“I have made a very rude translation of the Seven against Thebes, and Pindar too I have looked at, and wish he was better worth translating. I believe even the best things are not equal to their fame. Perhaps it would be better to translate fame itself,—or is not that what the poets themselves do? However, I have not done with Pindar yet.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)