Bob Brady joined The Olympic Club in the late 1940’s after serving in the Navy during WWll. He originally came from Montana and the Northwest. If you ever saw Brady in action, you would never forget his bullet-like kill shots, the wicked hop he could put on the ball form any angle in the court, the fantastic right-side service he would smoke by his opponents, the ball just rocketing just a foot above the floor. He played aggressively, and skillfully, using every shot in the book to get his 21 points in a hurry, leaving the court with another win.
Brady was a giant in National competition. He won the Singles championship in 1947, 1951, 1953, and 1957. He won the Doubles championships with fellow Olympian Bill Keays in 1951, 1963, and 1970. He won in 1968 with Olympian partner Bob McGuire. Perhaps the most electrifying moment in Olympic Club handball history, and Bob’s finest athletic hour came in 1957 when Bob Brady defeated Jim Jacobs in the finals of the AAU Championship. Bob came back from a 12 -19 deficit in the third game of that match to gain the championship. No one present, including, his wife Marge Brady, could forget the electricity, the heart-in-throat delirium, the afraid to breath tension and finally, unbelievably, the explosion of :frenetic, uncontrolled joy as Bob just wouldn’t be denied, when he literally clawed his way back from apparent defeat to stun the fabulous Jimmy Jacobs and win the 1957 USHA National Championship.
The one battle he was unable to overcome was to a fatal illness that took him at age 50 in 1972. Bob left the memory of a man who was the fiercest competitor the Olympic Club has ever known, a guy that tried to beat an opponent 21-0 every time.
