Kurt Lamm

The general secretary of the U.S. Soccer Federation from 1971 until his death in 1987, and one of the most notable of American soccer leaders who came up through the ethnic ranks of the sport.

Lamm served as chief administrative officer of the federation through some of its most trying times, including the era in which the federation was forced to take a back seat to the North American Soccer League as the dominant soccer organization in the United States and the Dettmar Cramer crisis of 1975. The high points of Lamm’s tenure included the organizing of the Bicentennial Cup in 1976 and the national team’s revival under coach Walt Chyzowych in the late 1970s.

Lamm, who was born in Germany and came to the United States as a teenager in 1936, was a member of the New York Eintracht team that won the National Amateur Cup in 1944 and 1945. He coached New York Hakoah  to American Soccer League championships in 1957, 1958 and 1959, and was named ASL coach of the year in 1957 and 1962. He also served as coach of the U.S. national team in a 1961 friendly against Colombia in Bogota.

Lamm was vice president of the ASL from 1959 to 1963, and then president from 1963 to 1968. He became the ASL business manager in 1964, and in 1968 became administrative assistant to USSFA general secretary Joe Barriskill, whom he succeeded in 1971.

Inducted in 1979.