C.c. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-coast Run Across America - Couverture rigide

Williams, Geoff

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1594863199 ISBN 13 : 9781594863196

Editeur : Rodale Books, 2007

Synopsis

Book by Williams Geoff

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

A riveting account of an incredible 3,423-mile foot race across America, the Great Foot Race of 1928, and C.C. Pyle, the legendary sports promoter who masterminded the event.

A year before the Great Depression, endurance fads were all the rage. From dance marathons to flagpole sitting, everyone was looking for a chance to change their luck, and spectators would shell out hard-earned cash to watch. When notorious sports agent and promoter C.C. Pyle offered a $25,000 prize for a foot race from Los Angeles to New York, 199 runners from all over the world took their marks and half a million spectators flocked to the starting line. The race was grueling, but an astonishing 55 participants made it to the Madison Square Garden finish line 84 days later.

C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race details this historic event and the colorful cast of characters involved.

At the crux of the story are two very different men: the fast-talking, shady, yet forward-thinking promoter C.C. Pyle, always scheming to make a quick buck; and Andy Payne, a 20-year-old part-Cherokee Oklahoman, who entered the competition as a longshot, against many world-class athletes, hoping to save his family's farm and win the heart of the girl of his dreams.

In re-creating this classic American drama, the author accessed exclusive, never-before-published material and the support of several descendants of the characters, including Andy Payne's daughter and C.C. Pyle's great-granddaughter.

Présentation de l'éditeur

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.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Rodale Books
• Date d'édition: 2007
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1594863199
• ISBN 13: 9781594863196
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 322
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible