New Britain has a proud sports heritage visible in its youth and school athletic programs, collegiate competition by the CCSU Blue Devils, and professional sports at Veterans and New Britain Stadiums. To recognize notable sports accomplishments, the New Britain Sports Hall of Fame was established in September 1996, and by 2015 it had inducted 246 people. Among the more notable figures are Thomas J. Lynch, a New Britain native who was a National League umpire in Major League Baseball from 1888 to 1902 and later became National League president in 1910; Harry Anthony Jacunski, a multi-sport standout at New Britain High School, a member of Fordham's Seven Blocks of Granite, and a Green Bay Packers defensive end during six NFL seasons from 1939 to 1944; Charles Toros Avedisian, an NFL player for the New York Giants from 1942 to 1944 who later served New Britain as Director of Physical Education, Athletics, and Safety; Steve Louis Dalkowski, the hard-throwing pitcher known as “Dalko,” whose legendary fastball inspired stories and later helped shape a character in the 1988 film Bull Durham; Willie Charles Hall, a Pulaski High School multi-sport star who played for USC, entered the NFL in 1972, and became a Super Bowl champion with the Oakland Raiders; Thomas Joseph Thibodeau, Jr., who grew up in New Britain, became an NBA assistant coach in 1989, head coach of the Chicago Bulls in 2010, and NBA Head Coach of the Year in 2011; Rod Foster, a Saint Thomas Aquinas High School point guard who starred at UCLA, set an NCAA single-season free throw percentage record, and played for the Phoenix Suns before an accident ended his NBA career; Jon C. Olson, a New Britain native who represented the U.S. at the 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics and won four gold medals, a bronze medal, and a world record in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay; Tebucky S. Jones, a New Britain High School star who played for Syracuse, was a first-round NFL draft pick in 1998, and was part of the New England Patriots team that won Super Bowl XXXVI before returning to coach New Britain's Golden Hurricanes; and George Chilton Springer III, who rose as a baseball prospect at New Britain High School, was named Big East Player of the Year at the University of Connecticut in 2011, and made his MLB debut with the Houston Astros in 2014.