Eli Sherman, 74; co-founded area Jewish Sports Hall of Fame

Eli Sherman, 74, who co-founded the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and spent more than 40 years working for Jewish community centers in Los Angeles, died Tuesday at a Palm Desert rehabilitation center. No cause of death was announced, but he had been in declining health for several months.

Sherman was the longtime physical education director at the Westside Jewish Community Center, having started as a part-time worker in 1955. In the 1990s, he moved to the New JCC at Milken in West Hills.

In 1989, he helped establish the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, an organization that has honored almost 300 Jewish athletes, sportsmen and sportswomen who distinguished themselves in Southern California.

Among the inductees are Sandy Koufax and Shawn Green of the Dodgers and Lillian Copeland, who won the gold medal in the discus at the 1932 Summer Olympics at the Coliseum, then boycotted the 1936 Berlin Games.

Born Feb. 13, 1932, in Chicago, Sherman moved to Boyle Heights when he was 14 and became a basketball standout at Roosevelt High School, East Los Angeles College and Cal State L.A. In 1957, he was the first player from the West Coast chosen to play for the U.S. team in the fifth World Maccabiah Games in Israel.