Madison will never forget and will always be in debt to Irwin Goodman, the eldest of the two jewelry store brothers who helped make Madison the city it is today. Irwin passed away Sunday at the age of 94, bringing to an end a storied life that meant so much to Madison business, its sport scene, its schools, its clubs and its robust nonprofit community.
….Irwin was a graduate of the University of Minnesota, where he lettered in track and field. His love for sports transferred to the University of Wisconsin, where he and his brother became fixtures in the stands at football and basketball games. Their generous donations to the athletic department included funded the conversion of the UW’s old baseball field near Picnic Point to a state-of-the-art women’s softball complex now known as Goodman Diamond, a clever takeoff on their years of advertising that “diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”