Hockey Official to Head Fitness Foundation

Hal Trumble, executive director of the U.S. Amateur Hockey Assn., will become the new head of the National Fitness Foundation, which will build the U.S. Fitness Academy in Aliso Viejo, it was announced Thursday.

Trumble, 60, a longtime hockey official and administrator, was named a member of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 1985.

He succeeds Bob Mathias, the former Olympic athlete and U.S. congressman, who resigned from the foundation last year over differences with the foundation’s chairman, George Allen, one-time coach of the Los Angeles Rams and Washington Redskins.

As executive director of the foundation, Trumble said his major job will be to raise funds for the academy, which Allen has estimated could cost from $50 million to $70 million. It is envisioned as a training center for physical education instructors.

Orange County has leased the land in the Aliso Viejo greenbelt rent-free to the foundation for the national academy. The foundation is a non-profit corporation founded to promote physical fitness.