The choice
Tal Brody was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1943 and became an All-American guard at the University of Illinois. In 1965 the Baltimore Bullets selected him with the 12th pick of the NBA draft.
That same summer Brody played at the Maccabiah Games in Israel. He accepted Gen. Moshe Dayan’s challenge to come play for Maccabi Tel Aviv. He delayed his promising NBA career by a year – and ended up staying a lifetime. Brody helped build a team, a basketball culture and a uplifted an entire nation all at once.
In 1970 Brody wore the colors of the United States at the World Championship in Yugoslavia. Seven years later he would return there to win it all in Belgrade for Israel.
For more than a decade (1967-1977 – ten consecutive national titles) Brody was the club’s leader on the floor and a fixture of the Israeli national team. He trained several generations of outstanding men and women and turned Israel into a European basketball powerhouse.
Off the floor Brody became one of the most beloved and best-known faces of Israeli sport around the world.
