The Three-Year Swim Club

Checkoway, Julie. The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory. New York: Grand Central. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

On Friday, August 20, 1937, three thousand people brimmed the bleachers at the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium -- working stiffs and hoi polloi in general admission, swells in the reserved seats, and just outside the concrete walls, barefoot local kids climbed the hau trees for the gratis view, perched on boughs like avifauna in silhouette.

Description:

OK, I know it's two weeks in a row I recommended books about Hawaiian swimmers. But I just could not resist promoting Julie Checkoway's unique history of The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory. 

It is the incredible story of one man in the 1930s, Sochi Sakamoto, a non-swimming Japanese-American science teacher at a sugar cane plantation school on Maui, who taught Japanese children of sugar cane workers to swim. Using only his wits and a filthy 8' long and 4' deep irrigation ditch, Sakamoto's program helped these "ditch-wrigglers" advance to win numerous national swimming titles and even Olympic gold medals.

Sakamoto, who possessed only survival swimming skills himself, volunteered to supervise the plantation workers' children trying to cool off in a nearby irrigation ditch for one hour a day. Eventually, he showed them how to put their heads underwater, float, and eventually "speed float" by propelling themselves in any way they could against the current in the ditch of incoming water. 

The 1930s were an era where swimming was of huge interest to the public, especially in Hawaii after the Olympic successes of Duke Kahanamoku and Johnny Weissmuller. Sakamoto read and observed these and other famous swimmers, including those competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and passed his knowledge on to his kids. He formed the "Three-Year Swim Club" (TYSC) with his best swimmers in 1937 with the sole purpose to train the for 1940 Tokyo Olympics. 

The Three-Year Swim Club details the unbelievable rise of this coach and his swimmers (most of whom previously had never left their sugar cane plantation in Maui) from winning the Duke Kahanamoku Invitation in 1938 (where skinny, flailing Keo Nakama defeated Olympic silver-medalist Ralph Gilman) to national and international meets in Detroit, St. Louis, New Haven, Santa Barbara, Australia, Paris, London, and Berlin. Nakama eventually won 27 US National Championships in events ranging from 100 yards to 1500 meters and was the first to swim the 27 mile channel between the Hawaiian islands of Molokai and Oahu. Bill Smith, another TYSC member, won two Olympic gold medals in 1948, while several others went on to collegiate Big Ten and National championships in the 1940s with the powerhouse swimming teams of The Ohio State University.

The drive of Sakamoto, his creativity in designing unique (now common today) training techniques, and his inspiration to motivate his swimmers to triumph, permeates every page of this wonderful book. Facing both worldwide adulation at meets as well as racial discrimination against Japanese during the World War II era, the TYSC swimmers and coach represent an tenacious and inspirational group of individuals who seek only to swim, have fun, compete, and triumph over whatever the world throws at them.

Don't let this fascinating history be forgotten. Read this great book as soon as you can.

Happy reading.

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Davis, David. Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku

History of Hawaii's greatest swimmer, surfer, and ambassador of the Aloha spirit in the early part of the twentieth century: Duke Kahanamoku. (previously reviewed here)

Brown, Daniel James. The Boys in the Boat

True story of the men who rowed to Olympic history and a gold medal in the Berlin Olympics in 1936.. (previously reviewed here)

Davis, David. Showdown at Shepherd's Bush: The 1908 Olympic Marathon and the Three Runners Who Launched a Sporting Craze.

Historical re-telling of the events of the 1908 Olympic marathon, the controversial finish (where one runner ran the wrong way in the stadium and was disqualified after being assisted by officials) and the training these pioneer runners endured.

Waterman

Davis, David. Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

The precise moment when Duke Paoa Kahanamoku slipped into the shimmering blue waters of the Pacific Ocean is lost to history.

Duke himself recalled only that he was around four years old when his father, so proud of his namesake, the first of the Kahanamoku children to survive infancy, tossed him over the side of a canoe somewhere off Waikiki Beach.

"It was save yourself or drown," he said, "so I saved myself."

Description:

Is there a more fun name to say than "Duke Kahanamoku" (Kah HAN ah MO koo)? And was there ever a better swimmer and ambassador for everything related to water sports? From surfing to open water swimming, paddle-boarding, outrigger canoeing and upright paddling to body surfing, Duke was The Man of the early twentieth century as recounted in David Davis' fascinating biography, Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku.

Duke grew up on Waikiki beach in the 1890s when Hawaii was still an independent kingdom. He spent his youth playing in the water, diving for coins tossed from tourist ocean liners, paddling outrigger canoes, and of course swimming. He also mastered "wave-riding" (surfing) using a 16' redwood board that weighed 150 pounds. At that time surfing was unknown outside of Hawaii, so it was Duke who later introduced the sport to California, Australia, and every other beach internationally that he visited.

Duke entered and set world records in AAU swim meets held in the open waters of Honolulu and again in amateur national meets on the Mainland. Duke went on to win Olympic medals in 1912, 1920, and 1924 in the Games held in Stockholm. (with Jim Thorpe), in Antwerp, and Paris (with teammate/rival Johnny Weissmuller). He turned his international recognition turned world tours and swimming demonstrations in Europe, Asia, and Australia. 

But back in Hawaii Duke faced racial discrimination and lack of employment. As an amateur, he could not make money from anything swimming-related, so the only work he could find was as a janitor/caretaker of the Honolulu government buildings, mowing lawns, sweeping halls, and cleaning bathrooms. He later owned a small gas station where he pumped gas below his surfboard hung outside as a promotional sign.

Author Davis details story after story of Duke's life in the water. In 1925, Duke performed a heroic rescue of eight passengers of a sinking boat in dangerously heavy seas in Newport Beach. Using his surfboard he performed "the most superhuman surfboard rescue act the world has ever seen" according to the Newport Chief of Police. Seventeen other passengers from that same perished. After that incident, all California lifeguards started using surfboards for their rescues.

But he always remained upbeat, uncomplaining about his slights in his life. He remained the unofficial ambassador of Hawaii, greeting incoming tourists and VIPs with leis, tours, and surfing lessons. Eventually he became the Sheriff of Honolulu, a small job that became important overnight when nearby Pearl Harbor was attacked. He even made two dozen movies with Paramount Pictures.

Duke Kahanamoku was an international figure in an era when the sport of swimming was as eagerly followed as baseball and boxing by a sports-hungry world. This well-researched book is a wonderful detailing of his life, his skills in the water, and his bigger-than-life personality that brought Hawaii into the consciousness of the world in the twentieth century. Highly recommended for lovers of swimming, history, and Hawaii.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Checkoway, Julie. The Three-Year Swim Club The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory

True story of the non-swimming elementary school teacher who developed 
children from poor sugar cane workers' from splashing around in an irrigation ditch in Maui, Hawaii to winning national and Olympic championships in the 1930s.

Brown, Daniel James. The Boys in the Boat

True story of the men who rowed to Olympic history and a gold medal in the Berlin Olympics in 1936. (previously reviewed here)

Davis, David. Showdown at Shepherd's Bush: The 1908 Olympic Marathon and the Three Runners Who Launched a Sporting Craze.

Historical re-telling of the events of the 1908 Olympic marathon, the controversial finish (where one runner ran the wrong way in the stadium and was disqualified after being assisted by officials) and the training these pioneer runners endured.

The Boys in the Boat

Brown, Daniel James. The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. New York: Viking. 2013. Print

First Sentences:

Monday, October 9, 1933, began as a gray day in Seattle. A gray day in a gray time.

Description:

I admit I knew nothing about rowing, much less 8-man crew racing, prior to reading this captivating book. But author Daniel James Brown has now made me so interested in this sport that I cannot wait for the 2016 Olympics to watch the crew races. 

Where once I thought crew was just a bunch of strong rowers going all out from start to finish, now I understand the exhaustive training, the synchronization of effort, intricate techniques, and subtle strategies as to number of strokes per minute vs. strength of each pull, etc. Absolutely eye-opening to be able to understand the workings of a successful team. 

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics recounts the lives of eight boys (and the men and women behind them) who became the crew team that rowed for the United States in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. 

Brown focuses primarily on one rower, Joe Rantz, describing his working class home, early poverty, and family struggles. Rantz actually was abandoned by his parents to live on his own at age 10, struggling to eat, work his two jobs cutting firewood for the school and toting dirty dishes at a restaurant, and then sleeping in the schoolhouse just to continue his schooling.

Rantz does graduate high school and enters the University of Washington and their powerhouse rowing program although he has never rowed before. He chooses to try out for crew because it guarantees a job on campus to any athlete who makes the team. This small but reliable source of money allows Rantz to continue his chemical engineering degree and his goal to marry his high school sweetheart. 

This is the Depression and jobs are scarce. To make college fees, Rantz also cuts timber, lays asphalt for roads, and uses a jack hammer while hanging over steep cliffs to drill the mountainside to build the Grand Coulee Dam. 

Meanwhile, the grueling crew workouts of rowing in wind, rain, snow, and ice soon winnow the 175 boys trying out for the 8-man freshman boat to just a handful. But Joe's boat beats both the varsity and JV in practice, and then goes on to win the only two competitive races of the season: against University of California Berkeley, and then later in Poughkeepsie against the crews from Columbia, Rutgers, Cornell, and Syracuse. Next stop: Berlin and the Olympics.

The Boys in the Boat pulls you along as Rantz and his fellow rowers face challenges of technique, unity, health, money, and dedication en route to their pursuit of the rare "Swing," where rowing becomes effortless, where each oarsman pulls together completely with his mates, and the boat flies along the water.

Brown also carefully details the background issues permeating the world around the boys. He describes the worldwide fanaticism over rowing, the building of the perfect shell, the Depression, Hitler's rise, the politics and propaganda behind the Olympics in Berlin. Brown also describes the interpersonal relationships between crew mates, their families, and friends over the long years of training.

And there is humor and innocence as boys become men, ride their first trains, board their first boat bound for Germany, experience the luxuries and temptations of their new exalted status in this age of the public fascination with major sports figures. Using diaries, interviews, newspaper articles, and personal interviews with the crew and their families, Brown ably captures the dreams, the insecurities, and the simple language of these characters.

It is a great tale of perseverance, of strong coaches and skillful shell (boat) designers. It is a history of the boys who became heroes to the world in that era, the men, boys, and boat builder who developed a crew capable of producing the perfect "Swing."

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

McPhee, John. Levels of the Game  

Get inside the minds of Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner in their 1968 U.S. Open match at Forest Hills. The book provides stroke by stroke description of the actions, but more importantly lets readers hear the thoughts of both players as they play each game: what strategies to try, the frustrations and exaltations. One of the best sports books ever.