St. Louis County Library: Sports Historian Michael Loynd In Conversation With Olympic Legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Creve Coeur MO

09 June, 2022

9:34 AM

Description

Press release from the St. Louis County Library: June 8, 2022 St. Louis County Library and the JCC of St. Louis are pleased to host an SLCL Authors @ the J event with Michael Loynd, chairman of the St. Louis Olympic Committee and author of "The Waterman: The Birth of American Swimming and One Young Man's Fight to Capture Olympic Gold." Loynd will be in conversation with St. Louis native and three-time Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Wednesday, June 15, at 7:00 p.m. at the JCC's Staenberg Family Center – Mirowitz Performing Arts Center, 2 Millstone Campus Drive, St. Louis, MO 63146. The program is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase at the event from Left Bank Books. St. Louis sports attorney and author Michael Loynd presents the feel-good underdog story of the first American swimmer to win Olympic gold. In the early twentieth century, few Americans knew how to swim, and swimming as a competitive sport was almost unheard of. That is, until Charles Daniels took to the water. On the surface, young Charles had it all: high-society parents, a place at an exclusive New York City prep school, summer vacations in the Adirondacks. But the scrawny teenager suffered from extreme anxiety thanks to a sadistic father who mired the family in bankruptcy and scandal before abandoning the family. Charles's only source of joy was swimming. But with no one to teach him, he struggled with technique—until he caught the eye of two immigrant coaches hell-bent on building a U.S. swim program that could rival the British Empire's seventy-year domination of the sport. Interwoven with the story of Charles's efforts to overcome his family's disgrace is the compelling history of the struggle to establish the modern Olympics in an era when competitive sports were still in their infancy. Set in the early days of a rapidly changing twentieth century, "The Watermen" tells an engrossing story of grit, of the growth of a major new sport in which Americans would prevail, and of a young man's determination to excel. Michael Loynd is chairman of the St. Louis Olympic Committee, a representative on the International Olympic Committee's World Union of Olympic Cities, a member of the International Society of Olympic Historians, and a sports attorney and lecturer. He is the author of "All Things Irish: A Novel." Program sites are accessible. With at least two weeks' notice, accommodations will be made for persons with disabilities. Call 314-994-3300 or contact us. This press release was produced by the St. Louis County Library. The views expressed here are the author's own.