International Sports Hall of Fame and Olympic Museum

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The International Sports Hall of Fame and Olympic Museum, was founded in January 1980 by the Eric Nash Corporation, which owned a chain of gift stores in large hotels in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco, and Disneyland. We opened and supported the museum for 32 years after it opened in 1980 and promoted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. We were official distributors of the LAOOC pin licensee of the 1984 Olympics, and sold the official pins and pin sets. Having been a collector of Olympic artifacts since being ten years old at the 1936 Winter and Summer Olympics in Germany and a desire to show and share my collection with the public, we decided to open an Olympic Museum next to one of our stores in Orange County, CA, and opened the first museum in January 1980, at the time of the Lake Placid Winter Olympics, while the LAOOC was getting ready for the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics and opened the first Olympic Museum in the United States and still remains the only museum of that kind in the United States.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this website, which is about Olympic History, Memorabilia and its rare artifacts as well as myself. Although I was born in Austria, my first six years after leaving Austria at eleven were in La Paz, Bolivia at 13,000 feet altitude and a change at seventeen to live in Buenos Aires, Argentina and twelve years later the United States. Leaving my native Austria was a must, and so was Argentina as it was not voluntarily, but because of some stupid, but very dangerous political situation, which is typical in Latin America. My best years in my life were the years of my sport activities in Argentina, from 1943 to 1955, playing football for River Plate, one of the best five football clubs of Argentina, from December to March, instead of staying in the in the heat, we traveled to other countries for three months a year for first division in and I also was able to qualify for two Olympics participating in two for London in 1948 and for Helsinki in 1952i  as a sprinter, were my most wonderful years of my young life, as well as being able to go to most Olympics for free with an Argentine Accreditation pass, always respecting the Argentine Olympic Committee and Argentina.

Going through three emigrations and name changes, having seen political turmoil, revolutions, military coups, governments changes from one day to the next, with no assurance of safety, because of the greed for power to rule, as I have witnessed in my native Austria and later in Bolivia and Argentina, which cannot be told in just a few simple words, but only in a book which I may write some time in the future after having experienced and even been involved in it a few times in my life. In1937, my parents and I left Austria strictly for political reasons and in 1955, I had to do the same, leaving behind my football trophies and Olympic artifacts in Buenos Aires with a friend and neighbor, who, when I was able to go back later and searching for him and his young wife were, according to his mother, picked up by secret police, and were not alive anymore, and the items stolen.

In 1955, when I came to this country, I thought I could get some benefit from having played in one of the best clubs worldwide, playing or coaching, but football, in the US called soccer, not yet being a professional sport as it is in most parts of the world and having to make a living, I had to find other jobs, which was degrading for me after being on top, and even my college background did not help. and other than the trips to the Olympics, playing tennis, golf and other sports, football was over for me. This Website is mainly about my life, Olympics, the museum and my large collection, which has been a mayor part of my life, but now, eighty five and suffering from illness, I may not even be able to attend the Olympics anymore and instead write about the ones I have attended and participated. The Olympics that were dearest to me, were of course the ones of 1948 London and 1952 Helsinki, but my first two in Germany in 1936 and my first Olympic Torch Ceremony were definitely not far behind and not to be forgotten, the trials to qualify and almost being denied my two Olympic participations by being considered a professional athlete by the CIO overly strict regulations, that now don't exist anymore.              

Our three email addresses: enash327@yahoo.com  ( checked daily, but it is not a very secure email address) olynash327@hotmail.com or: ericnash327@olympicsource.org (checked weekly, but are secure addresses) (Some emails sent with Yahoo have been stolen by internet criminals, who are sending false messages to our contacts. Do not believe in anything they are saying in them! They are just trying to get money from anybody!)