Not an Ordinary Life: From class enemy to the hall of fame and a lifetime in between (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781517263959)

I have faced countless challenges throughout life, but writing my life story ranks high on the list. It has truly been a labour of love. The Hody family experienced two world wars and two revolutions. Throughout that time the face of Europe changed dramatically. New countries were created by land annexations and some old ones disappeared. Our forefathers enjoyed a few decades of peace but far more periods of war and dictatorship. Hungary, a proud and self sufficient country for the previous 1100 years, was annexed in 1918 after World War I and consequently lost two thirds of its land and sixty five percent of its population. This was the landscape where my family carved out an existence, always adapting to changing circumstances. Many of them experienced upheaval, injustice and torture, but also enjoyed wealth and prosperity. Since the age of eighteen I have traveled the world many times, visited seventy-eight countries on all continents as a sportsman, businessman and later as a semi retiree. I have lived in three; Hungary, Australia and New Zealand. I was also the first male athlete in the modern Olympics to represent two different countries; Hungary in 1952 at the Helsinki Games and Australia in 1964 in Tokyo. In addition, I was selected to play in additional Olympics; the Hungarian National Basketball Team at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the Australian National Team in 1960 Rome, and again in 1968 at the Mexico City Games. Unfortunately, much to my disappointment, I missed out on participating for a combination of political, bureaucratic and economic reasons completely out of my control. The Hungarian National team won silver at the European Championships in Moscow in 1953, gold in the World University Championship in 1954 in Budapest finished on top of the European Basketball Championships in 1955. Had I lived in a different era I most probably would have had a longer and more successful career. In addition to sport, I've tackled trades, had numerous businesses, and lived at more addresses than I can possibly remember. The school of life offers many courses, but it is in the difficult classes that we learn the most about who we really are.