Franz Lidz & Arn Tellem entering Hall together

THE DESCRIPTION is perfect, given the occasion.

Longtime journalist Franz Lidz likens his childhood friend Arn Tellem, the iconic sports agent, to a traditional Jewish dish.

"What separates him from others is he's kind of a gefilte fish in a sea of sharks," Lidz says.

Tellem and Lidz, friends since the age of 9 at Belmont Hills Elementary School in Bala Cynwyd, are among seven notables who will be inducted into the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame on Thursday at the Gershman Y, 401 S. Broad St.

Tellem, who graduated from Haverford College in 1976 and Michigan Law School in 1979, has a client list that includes Chase Utley and Yu Darvish in baseball and Derrick Rose, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook in basketball.

Tellem, who became part owner of Israel's Hapoel Jerusalem Basketball Club in 2013, ranked first this season in NBA players represented (42) and NBA All-Stars (12).

Lidz spent 27 years as a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He now works as a contributing editor for Smithsonian Magazine and also does freelance work for Slate, the Wall Street Journal, GQ and more. He has written occasionally for the New York Times on travel, TV, film and theater since 1982.

Among the several books he has written is "Unstrung Heroes: My Improbable Life With Four Impossible Uncles." A childhood memoir, it was adapted into 1995 movie starring John Turturro and Andie MacDowell.

"It's kind of funny because I never have really been elected anything since second grade and that was the president of the bulletin-board desecration committee," Lidz said with a laugh. "And I elected myself to that position. So this is completely new territory. It's unexpected and I'm flattered."

Perhaps the best way to describe the relationship between Tellem and Lidz is to relive just how Jason Collins became the first openly gay athlete in North America's four major professional sports.

Collins, one of Tellem's clients, told his agent that he was gay and wanted to come out, but he didn't know the best way to do it. So Tellem went to his friend Lidz for advice.

Lidz, who still writes occasionally for Sports Illustrated, figured he could take on the story himself. Lidz was in Dublin, Ireland on vacation with his wife following a trip to England to interview Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, the colorful ski jumper from the 1988 Olympics.

Tellem didn't tell Lidz who the player was until Lidz arrived in Los Angeles the next day. Lidz's daughter, Daisy, who works for Tellem's wife, Nancy, as a television producer in Los Angeles, flew out as well to transcribe the interview as it happened.

The day after flying to Los Angeles from Dublin, Lidz and Daisy met with Collins for 4 hours and churned out one of the biggest stories in sports history overnight.

The next day, Lidz, Daisy and Tellem went to Collins' townhouse in Los Angeles. Collins read the story, which Lidz wrote in Collins' voice, aloud in front of everyone, including his parents. Every few minutes, Lidz said, Collins would stop and say, "Thank you."

The story got more online hits than any other story in the magazine's history.

"It was one of the most gratifying things in my entire career, just the way it came off," Lidz said. "It was just this terrific moment in my career. Arn was extremely helpful and gracious. And the response that it got was phenomenal.

"By the time I had retired [2007], I had done exactly two cover stories in my entire career at SI. Two years ago, I had two cover stories: Collins and [Dennis] Rodman."

Lidz, who has lived in Landenberg, Pa., for the last 22 years, and Tellem have similar backstories. Both moved to the area around the same time in elementary school, Lidz from New York and Tellem from West Philadelphia. Each lost a parent around the time of his bar mitzvah, Lidz losing his mother a few months after his and Tellem losing his father just before his.

They grew up playing Wiffle Ball together in the backyard of their friend Jay Herman's house. Lidz wrote about that in his third year at Sports Illustrated. His first story at the magazine, in 1980, begins with a reference to Tellem, and he eventually wrote a 10-page feature on Tellem in 2003.

Lidz says all of Tellem's agreements with his clients are handshake agreements without contracts, something Lidz says isn't a popular engagement.

"If you think of some of Arn's competitors, they've come to sort of embody everything ulcerus, bilious and soulless about sports," Lidz said. "They're ruthless, they're cutthroat and they're often abundantly successful. But what makes him stand apart is he's very candid and compassionate in his ways."

Compassionate, indeed. Daisy will be there to see her father honored Thursday night. Lidz asked her if she needed a ticket. She said no, Tellem had already gotten hers.

The other inductees are sports psychologist Joel Fish, tennis coach Marty Gilbert, golfer Ben Goldman, basketball player Sam Jacobs and the late former Penn State Nittany Lion mascot, Norm Constantine.