C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race

C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race PDF Author: Geoff Williams
Publisher: Tantor eBooks
ISBN: 1618030892
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Among the runners of C. C. Pyle's First Annual International Transcontinental Foot Race were an assortment of underdogs, including twenty-year-old Oklahoman and part Cherokee Andy Payne, who wanted to win over the girl of his dreams and pay off the mortgage on his family's farm; Paul "Hardrock" Simpson, who was in over his head but couldn't let down his North Carolina hometown; Mike Kelly, a luckless boxer from Indiana; Seattle's Ed Gardner, one of four black runners who encountered bigotry; Charles Hart, a sixty-three-year-old Englishman hoping his best days weren't behind him; and Frank Johnson, a middle-aged husband, father, and steelworker from St. Louis who broke away from his humdrum life and dared to do something different. Newspaper and magazine journalist Geoff Williams details this historic event and the colorful cast of characters involved, based on firsthand accounts of those who were there and interviews from many living descendants. C. C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race is a classic American story so astonishing and surreal that you have to hear it to believe it.

C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race

C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race PDF Author: Geoff Williams
Publisher: Tantor eBooks
ISBN: 1618030892
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Get Book Here

Book Description
Among the runners of C. C. Pyle's First Annual International Transcontinental Foot Race were an assortment of underdogs, including twenty-year-old Oklahoman and part Cherokee Andy Payne, who wanted to win over the girl of his dreams and pay off the mortgage on his family's farm; Paul "Hardrock" Simpson, who was in over his head but couldn't let down his North Carolina hometown; Mike Kelly, a luckless boxer from Indiana; Seattle's Ed Gardner, one of four black runners who encountered bigotry; Charles Hart, a sixty-three-year-old Englishman hoping his best days weren't behind him; and Frank Johnson, a middle-aged husband, father, and steelworker from St. Louis who broke away from his humdrum life and dared to do something different. Newspaper and magazine journalist Geoff Williams details this historic event and the colorful cast of characters involved, based on firsthand accounts of those who were there and interviews from many living descendants. C. C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race is a classic American story so astonishing and surreal that you have to hear it to believe it.

The Great American Foot Race

The Great American Foot Race PDF Author: Andrew Speno
Publisher: Boyds Mills Press
ISBN: 1629797979
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
This accessible and thoroughly researched nonfiction debut introduces young readers to a fascinating, little-known event—the Transcontinental Foot Race, which came to be known as the Bunion Derby. It is set in 1928, the height of the Roaring Twenties—a time of optimism, a time of excess, and the Age of Ballyhoo. Publicity-seeking Americans tried to outdo each other with outrageous stunts. Dance marathoners danced for days on end, pole-sitters sat atop flagpoles for weeks, trained athletes worked to beat records, and Charles Lindbergh made the first solo transatlantic flight. What could top this? Cyrus Avery, an ordinary Oklahoma businessman, teamed up with C. C. Pyle, the "P. T. Barnum of Professional Sports," to hold a transcontinental foot race. More than 100 men of all races and nationalities started the race in California and faced all manner of obstacles—from extreme weather to poor food and living conditions, to prejudice to injury—to make the cross-country journey across the United States, ending in New York City. This "Bunion Derby" pushed human endurance to the limits in an unforgettable show of "ballyhoo." This book is written in a folksy style that perfectly captures the mood and tone of the late 1920s and includes archival photographs, a map of the derby route, stats, a bibliography, and source notes.

Bunion Derby

Bunion Derby PDF Author: Charles B. Kastner
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826343017
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
The story of Charley Pyle's 3,400-mile cross country race and extravaganza and the men who endured 84 days of mountains, deserts, mud, and sandstorms to compete for a $25,000 grand prize.

Cash and Carry

Cash and Carry PDF Author: Jim Reisler
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786452625
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
C.C."Cash and Carry" Pyle made several fortunes representing professional football and tennis players--before losing everything and disappearing into history's dustbin. This work reevaluates Pyle's fast life and times while analyzing his extraordinary and enduring legacy. In 1925, Pyle rocked the sports world by inducing Red Grange to abandon the leafy confines of the University of Illinois for pro football, in essence thumbing his nose at protesting academics who insisted the move would irreparably harm both the college game and Grange's career. The book continues through all of Pyle's successes, and more than a few of his failures, including his signing of controversial French tennis star Suzanne Lenglen and his near-bankruptcy following losses incurred staging the short-lived annual Bunion Derby, as newspaper columnists dubbed the notorious 3,470-mile transcontinental footrace first held in 1928.

Runner's World

Runner's World PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description
Runner's World magazine aims to help runners achieve their personal health, fitness, and performance goals, and to inspire them with vivid, memorable storytelling.

The First Star

The First Star PDF Author: Lars Anderson
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588368947
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
In The First Star, acclaimed sports writer Lars Anderson recounts the thrilling story of Harold "Red" Grange, the Galloping Ghost of the gridiron, and the wild barnstorming tour that earned professional football a place in the American sporting firmament. Red Grange's on-field exploits at the University of Illinois, so vividly depicted in print by the likes of Grantland Rice and Damon Runyan, had already earned him a stature equal to that of Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, and other titans of American sports' golden age. Then, in November 1925, Grange made the fateful decision to parlay his fame in pro ball, at the time regarded as inferior to the "purer" college game. Grange signed on with the dapper theater impresario and promoter C. C. Pyle, who had courted him with the promise of instant wealth and fame. Teaming with George Halas, the hard-nosed entrepreneurial boss of the cash-strapped Chicago Bears NFL franchise, Pyle and Grange crafted an audacious plan: a series of seventeen matches against pro teams and college "all-star" squads–an entire season's worth of games crammed into six punishing weeks that would forever change sports in America. With an unerring eye, Anderson evocatively captures the full scope of this frenetic Jazz Age spectacle. Night after night, the Bears squared off against a galaxy of legends–Jim Thorpe, George "Wildcat" Wilson, the "Four Horsemen of Notre Dame": Stuhldreher, Crowley, Miller, and Layden–while entertaining immense crowds. Grange's name alone could cause makeshift stadiums to rise overnight, as occurred in Coral Gables, Florida, for a Bears game against a squad of college stars. Facing constant physical punishment and nonstop attention from autograph hounds, gamblers, showgirls, and headhunting defensive backs, Grange nevertheless thrilled audiences with epic scoring runs and late-game heroics. Grange's tour alone did not account for the rise of the NFL, but in bringing star power to fans nationwide, Grange set the pro game on a course for dominance. A real-life story chock-full of timeless athletic feats and overnight fortunes, of speakeasies and public spectacles, The First Star is both an engrossing sports yarn and a meticulous cultural narrative of America in the age of Gatsby.

Eat and Run

Eat and Run PDF Author: Scott Jurek
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408833409
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
An inspirational memoir by Scott Jurek, one of the finest ultrarunners in the world.

Running Through the Ages, 2d ed.

Running Through the Ages, 2d ed. PDF Author: Edward S. Sears
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476620865
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
Beginning with prehumans running down prey, this book describes how ancient, medieval and modern runners have come to run ever faster. Writers of antiquity left few detailed accounts of running but in the early 1800s detailed accounts of running feats and matches appeared in newspapers, journals and books. Nineteenth century pioneers like George Seward, Harry Hutchens, Walter George and Bernie Wefers are here given long-deserved recognition. The six-day Go-as-You-Please races of the 1870s and 1880s--featuring running's first great female performer, Amy Howard--are discussed. Twentieth century luminaries Helen Stephens, Jesse Owens, Paavo Nurmi, Emil Zatopek, Bob Hayes, Abebe Bikila and Joan Benoit-Samuelson are included, along with the Bunion Derby races of 1928-1929. New material for this revised and expanded second edition includes coverage of the 1970s running boom, women marathon pioneers, the impact of drugs on running, and the feats of 21st century runners such as Usain Bolt, Paula Radcliffe and Haile Gebrselassie.

Washed Away

Washed Away PDF Author: Geoff Williams
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1639361383
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
The incredible story of a flood of near-biblical proportions -- its destruction, its heroes and victims, and how it shaped America's natural-disaster policies for the next century. The storm began March 23, 1913, with a series of tornadoes that killed 150 people and injured 400. Then the freezing rains started and the flooding began. It continued for days. Some people drowned in their attics, others on the roads when they tried to flee. It was the nation's most widespread flood ever—more than 700 people died, hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings were destroyed, and millions were left homeless. The destruction extended far beyond the Ohio valley to Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont. Fourteen states in all, and every major and minor river east of the Mississippi. In the aftermath, flaws in America's natural disaster response system were exposed, echoing today's outrage over Katrina. People demanded change. Laws were passed, and dams were built. Teams of experts vowed to develop flood control techniques for the region and stop flooding for good. So far those efforts have succeeded. It is estimated that in the Miami Valley alone, nearly 2,000 floods have been prevented, and the same methods have been used as a model for flood control nationwide and around the world.

Life on Route 66

Life on Route 66 PDF Author: Claudia Heller
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1614234787
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
A celebration of America’s most historic highway, in words and pictures. Winding through the rugged heartland of the American West, Route 66 has resonated for generations in hardscrabble tales of hopeful seekers of new homes and new lives. It also inspired Alan and Claudia Heller, longtime residents of Duarte, a California town along Route 66, to hitch their trailer to a retirement dream and travel the road again, journeying through their home state and back to Chicago. They collected stories of the iconic highway, and what it means to the people who live along its way, for a series in the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. This collection retraces their journey and introduces us to some of the people and places that make Route 66 truly historic.