London's calling Long Island ex-Olympian

When Ray Lumpp arrived in London in the summer of 1948, he found a wounded city, still recovering from the devastation of World War II. More than seven years earlier, the city had been pummeled by 76 consecutive nights of bombing by the German Luftwaffe, an air offensive known as the Blitz.

"They were still digging out from the war," recalls Lumpp, then a 25-year-old from Queens who had come to compete as a member of the U.S. basketball team at the Summer Olympics. "They were putting big piles of rubble in barges to take out to sea. . . . They were not ready to run the Olympics, but you have to give the British credit. They did a great job."

That summer, Lumpp and his teammates won the gold medal, overwhelming France in the final, 65-21. "We received our medal in Wembley Stadium," says Lumpp, reminiscing recently in his East Williston home, where his Olympic and pro sports career memorabilia are displayed. "We're standing in front of 60,000 people. They hoist up your flag and play the national anthem. It was so meaningful. You're not representing yourself. You're representing your country."

Now, more than six decades later, Lumpp, 88, is set to return to London this summer to watch the U.S. basketball team compete in the 2012 Olympic Games. The oldest of six surviving members from the 1948 team, Lumpp was invited by the current team's coach, Mike Krzyzewski of Duke University, to watch the semifinals and final game.

For Lumpp, a retired widower with four children, 14 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, it will be the culmination of a storied life in sports that included Olympic gold. He was an outstanding player for New York University; played for the New York Knicks in the early years of the National Basketball Association; and for nearly five decades served as athletic director of the New York Athletic Club, which has produced 230 Olympic medal winners -- more than any other athletic club in the world.

"He's one of those unusual individuals who has been able to interface with both New York and the international community," says Harvey Schiller, former executive director and secretary-general of the U.S. Olympic Committee. "He's been a tremendous supporter of sports in many ways -- his history, his input, his support," says Schiller, whose diverse career includes serving as chief executive of YankeeNets, the precursor to the YES Network.

"Ray is just a bigger-than-life character," says James O'Brien, former president of New York Athletic Club who has known Lumpp since the early 1980s. "He's up there with all the New York sports legends."

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Born in Brooklyn, Lumpp grew up in Forest Hills, where his father, Fred, put up a basketball hoop in the backyard. It was Lumpp's older brother, Will, who got him interested in basketball. "He started earlier," Lumpp says, "but I caught up." At Newton High School in Elmhurst, the 6-foot-1 Lumpp became an outstanding guard with a lethal lefthanded hook shot.

Despite a standout career at Newton High, he got no scholarship offers after graduation. Lumpp continued playing in a few local leagues, as well as with the New York Athletic Club team. He might have ended up working for his father's contracting business if not for a scrimmage one day between the athletic club team and New York University's basketball team. After the game, NYU's coach, Howard Cann, approached him with two tickets to the team's game at Madison Square Garden Saturday night and told Lumpp to meet him there. That night, recalled Lumpp, "he called me over and said, 'How would you like a scholarship to NYU?' "

In February 1942, Lumpp entered the university as a midyear student and became a starting player. But with the outbreak of World War II, he was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Forces, remaining stateside in Nebraska and Florida, where he got a chance to compete with many of the country's best basketball players. When the war ended, Lumpp had offers to play at colleges across the country, but he decided to rejoin his legendary NYU coach, Cann (a former Olympic shot putter), who had led the team to the finals of the 1945 NCAA Tournament.

Those were heady days for college basketball. The newly created Knicks were still relegated to the Armory on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, while college teams came from all over to play at Madison Square Garden. "College basketball was it, and Madison Square Garden was Mecca," Lumpp recalls.

During the spring of 1948, Lumpp's senior year, he was captain of the NYU team that reached the final at the National Invitation Tournament before losing to St. Louis University. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in physical education, Lumpp was selected as one of 14 members of the Olympic team. Dubbed "the Austerity Olympics," these were the first Summer Games since the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. (The 1940 and 1944 games were canceled because of the war.) There was still food rationing in Great Britain and the Americans were criticized for bringing their own food to the Olympics. Some competitors feared it would give the Americans an edge.

Not that the U.S. team was living in luxury. The athletes traveled to and from London by passenger ship, which took about a week each way. Lumpp couldn't afford to take his wife, Anne, so she went home to Nebraska and stayed with her family. And while the athletes competed at the Games, they were was housed in Royal Air Force barracks.

After nearly being upset by Argentina in the preliminary round, the U.S. team cruised through the rest of the field. "We were afraid of being the first [American] team to lose a game," Lumpp says. "It's our game. We were expected to win." During halftime in the final against France, Lumpp recalls, several Olympic officials "came into the locker room and told us, 'Please don't embarrass the French anymore.' So I think we let up a little." Still, the U.S. team won by 44 points.

When Lumpp returned home, he was named the No. 1 draft pick for the National Basketball League's Indianapolis Jets. He remembers his father-in-law asking him, "Now that you're out of college, what are you going to do next?" Lumpp told him, "I got a pro contract." His father-in-law's response: "Yeah, but how are you going to support my daughter?" Lumpp's starting salary was $6,000 (roughly the equivalent of $56,000 today). "Pro ball was a lark in those days," Lumpp says. "In the summer, you had to take other jobs."

A year later, Lumpp was traded to the Knicks. Over four years, he helped the Knicks reach the championship series twice (they lost each time in the seventh game). Lumpp played his last pro-basketball year for the Baltimore Bullets before returning to NYU to serve as assistant coach under Cann for several years.

In 1960, he decided to accept a job as athletic director at the New York Athletic Club. "It was a new life for me," Lumpp says, "and I loved the job so much I stayed for 50 years." Part of that job involved organizing amateur indoor track meets that drew top runners from around the world. It was something he knew little about but became "very adept at it," says Howard Schmertz, the former meet director of the Millrose Games, a prestigious annual track meet. "He was a roundball [basketball] man, but he was a very important figure in track and field."

Several years ago, Lumpp lost Anne, his wife of 54 years, but he continues to be active and upbeat, marveling at his unexpected life. "I'm a very lucky man," he says. "I've had a wonderful job, a wonderful family. I've played for hall-of-fame coaches at every level."

Lumpp is a devoted Knicks fan. "Once a Knick, always a Knick," he says. He watches every Knicks game on TV, and observes that it's a very different game these days. "In my era, we never dunked the ball. The big men couldn't move. Today, they're so agile, so athletic."

Though retired, Lumpp is still involved in many New York Athletic Club events and Olympic organizing activities. "I've always enjoyed working with young people," he says. "It keeps me young." Lumpp has twice participated in the Olympic torch relay -- once in the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games, and again in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. Throughout his life, the Olympics has been "a great boost -- it's brought me so much happiness and good will," Lumpp says.

"When you make the team, it's a dream come true. And when you win a gold medal, they can never take that away from you. You cherish it the rest of your life."