Howard Lassoff

Howard Lassoff was born in 1955 in Philadelphia

Lassoff was born in Philadelphia in 1955 to Irving and Hilda Lassoff, the second of four children. The family later moved to Lower Merion Township, a suburb of Philadelphia. He first liked tennis but turned to basketball at Lower Merion High School, where he became the starting center.

He played college basketball on a scholarship at American University in Washington, D.C., under coach Jim Lynam. He was a starting center there and earned a BS degree in Criminal Justice. In 1977 he played for the US team at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, which won a gold medal.

He then played professionally in Israel, for Hapoel Haifa, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv, Maccabi Hadera and Hapoel Jerusalem. With Maccabi Tel Aviv he won 6 championships and 5 state cups and played in 2 European Champions Cup finals. He became an Israeli citizen and played for the Israeli national team from 1982 to 1991.

In 1993 he returned to the United States with his wife and two sons, and later worked in sales for a legal database company. He played for the US veterans team at the 1997 Maccabiah. He was inducted into the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2011 and died of cancer in 2013.