Award-Winning Book, ‘The Watermen,’ Scheduled For Paperback Publication; Tells Story of American Star Charles Daniels

Award-Winning Book, ‘The Watermen,’ Scheduled For Paperback Publication; Tells Story of American Star Charles Daniels

A year ago, The Watermen: The Birth of American Swimming and One Young Man’s Fight to Capture Olympic Gold, was released by Penguin Random House. The book, written by Michael Loynd, dove deep into the world of swimming in the early 1900s, notably telling the story of Charles Daniels, the first star of American swimming.

Now, the book is set to be released in paperback, with a publication date of Tuesday, June 13. Loynd’s work earned him the Paragon Award and the Buck Dawson Author’s Award from the International Swimming Hall of Fame. The Watermen has received widespread acclaim, with some of the praise included below. Additionally, here is an excerpt from the book.

Excerpted from The Watermen: The Birth of American Swimming and One Young Man’s Fight to Capture Olympic Gold by Michael Loynd. Copyright © 2022 by Michael Loynd. Excerpted by permission of Ballantine Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Book Review

Fifteen thousand British spectators gathered inside London’s Olympic stadium to see if the human fish could actually crawl on top of the water. Despite the morning rains, the crowds came on a cloudy July afternoon in 1908 to bear witness to what newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic had been writing about over the past two years. But when the young American walked onto the damp lawn, he didn’t look anything like a fish. He wore a dark blue swim cap over his short blond hair, a heavy, navy-colored wool bathing suit that stretched from shoulders to knees, and a long white robe that moments later would be at the center of an international scandal.

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At a time when only top royalty and powerful heads of state were known beyond their country’s borders, the name of the so-called American fish, Charles Daniels, was on people’s lips throughout North America, Europe, and Australia. No one quite knew where he came from. The origins of his swimming prowess remained equally shrouded in secrecy. And whatever fueled his unlikely rise was made all the more mysterious by the fact that almost no one in America swam. The country’s measly six hundred competitive swimmers had been discarded as laughingstocks compared with the superior Europeans. Yet somehow this twenty-three-year-old, who admittedly could not muster a decent stroke four years earlier, held every American swimming record from fifty yards to the mile. He had willed into being the first U.S. Olympic swim team. Invented the modern-day freestyle stroke. Popularized an obscure sport whose minimal attire and openness to all genders challenged the day’s narrow-minded Victorian attitudes that oppressed so many. And now he claimed world records in the sport England had invented and dominated for the past seventy years.

The sport’s supreme authority, England’s Amateur Swimming Association, denounced him as a fraud, refusing to validate his achievements. And what had begun four years earlier as a personal struggle to overcome crippling anxiety and improve his and his mother’s bleak existence now placed him at these fourth Olympic Games with the chance to accomplish what no one believed possible: becoming the first non-British swimmer to seize the world’s No. 1 ranking. America loved a winner. What Charles didn’t realize was that London’s Olympic organizers were conspiring to ensure that never happened.

The European champion was already rumored to be posting world record time trials after copying Daniels’s unique crawling technique. With a body forged from steel, an incredible wingspan, and a shaved head that signaled he was all business, the European champ had beaten him during their first encounter at the 1904 Olympics. Then won again last year at the 1907 English Championships, this time with the underhanded help of the same British swim judges who now officiated these London Games.

The fact that the Olympic officials were all British presented a major conflict of interest that the International Olympic Committee would never allow to happen again. The Brits operated all the stopwatches. They made the call on close finishes. Any complaint filed by the American team over the British referees’ hometown bias or blatant cheating was ruled upon by the same British officials. Unless he won by a clear margin, the opportunity for the judges to rule in another competitor’s favor remained very real. And Charles needed to do more than just win. To leave no room for the British Empire’s swimming authorities to again dismiss him, he had to break their world record. Which they had made more difficult by designing an outdoor pool four times longer than any concrete tank in the world (twice as long as what would become standard for a modern Olympic-sized pool). Its hundred-meter length eliminated Charles’s superior off-the-wall turning advantage that the British press insisted was the only reason he could ever defeat one of their champions. On top of that, England’s Olympic officials “randomly” assigned him to the farthest lane, the hardest position to hear the starting call or see one’s opponents, and the most likely spot to face more resistance from the displaced waves rebounding off the side wall and back onto the swimmer. Yet, despite all these disadvantages, they sneaked in one final measure to guarantee his defeat and extinguish his growing legacy.

Photo Courtesy: Jocelyn Seagrave

A sense of anticipation buzzed inside the stadium as Charles walked across the grass in front of the king’s royal box and onto the wooden starting deck of the infield’s pool to begin the hundred-meter race. All of his teammates had met defeat at the hands of Britain’s superior watermen, and other than a tiny section of flag-waving country¬men relegated to the stadium’s far corner, the entire crowd hoped to see the American fish defeated.

The official starter, a mustachioed Brit named Mr. Hudson, called out, “Take your marks,” to signal the swimmers to remove their robes. Charles had his robe half drawn off, listening intently for Mr. Hudson’s next call, “Are you ready?”—but the next word from Mr. Hudson was “Go!”

Every opponent vanished. Charles’s head whipped around in panic as he realized the trick. Loud splashes and the fast-departing churn of water exploded beneath him. His competitors had all been forewarned. They now had an insurmountable head start while Charles was still yanking his arms out of his sleeves.

Mr. Hudson and his fellow officials grinned.

The American fish was defeated before he got wet. The officials knew it. Everyone in the stadium knew it. But as Charles ripped off his robe and dove into the water, he knew only that he was in for the fight of his life.

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Praise for THE WATERMEN

“Told in an involving narrative-nonfiction style, Loynd’s book folds Daniels’ inspirational story into a broader account of Olympics history. Dramatic subplots include the stories of Daniels’ parents: a father who abandoned the family for life as a womanizing swindler; and a mother, born into a Buffalo elite family, who was shamed by repressive Victorian standards as a divorcee. Pair this with Daniel James Brown’s The Boys in the Boat (2013), another inspirational narrative-nonfiction history of early Olympic triumphs.”
—Booklist

“[T]he author creates an inspiring portrait of Daniels’ achievements . . . . An enjoyable underdog tale for swimmers and general sports fans.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“In The Watermen Michael Loynd tells Daniels’s remarkable story and chronicles its broader cultural effect—the birth of America’s competitive swimming tradition and the mainstreaming, as it were, of swimming in American life…The Watermen…bring[s] to life an inspiring figure and illuminate[s] an overlooked chapter in America’s sports history…Tailor-made for cinematic treatment.” —Wall Street Journal

“This is a book about a revolutionary time in the sport of swimming…an inspiring beach read.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“I felt as if I literally went back in time to the early 20th century. This is a story of one of the most fascinating people not only in the sport of swimming but in all of athletics. It’s about time someone recognizes Charles Daniels for the impact he made on swimming. Michael Loynd has done that to perfection and I couldn’t put it down!”
—Rowdy Gaines, Olympic gold medalist, NBC Olympic swimming commentator, AKA “The Voice of American Swimming”

“Kudos to Michael Loynd for his careful telling of this truly compelling story of Charles Daniels. It is a combination of athletic triumph, individual perseverance in the face of adversity, and signification social history.”
—Bob Costas, Olympic Games TV sportscaster

“Once or twice in a decade, one of these stories…like Laura Hildebrand’s Unbroken [or] Daniel Brown’s The Boys in the Boat…captures the imagination of the public…Add The Watermen by Michael Loynd to this illustrious list.” —Swimming World

“The first American ever acclaimed the ‘world’s fastest swimmer,’ Charlie Daniels seemed to have it all — good looks, high-society background, Olympic gold, and world records galore. Out of sight, though, he had to fight his own self-doubts, the long shadow of his famous swindler-father, and a British-dominated swimming establishment that didn’t want an American to succeed. A lively account of high ambitions, low behavior, and a lone athlete with an indomitable will.”
—Howard Means, author of Splash! 10,000 Years of Swimming

“For fans of the human stories of determination and personal triumph that emerge from each Olympic Games, The Watermen is essential.” —St. Louis Magazine

“Loynd combines Daniels’ life with a fascinating history of the early Olympic games and an America that gained interest in swimming.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“This book invaluable for anyone interested in Olympic history, swimming history—and, of course, Buffalo history.” —The Buffalo News

“The Watermen is a propulsive, deeply researched, and empathetic book. It is the intimate tale of an athlete driven to greatness, and the forces that drove him there; an exhilarating plunge into the early history of competitive American swimming, the Olympic movement, and the rich and powerful people who shaped sports for a century to come.”
—Eric Nusbaum, author of Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between

“Michael Loynd has crafted the best page-turner about Olympic competition since The Boys in the Boat. I found myself leaning into his vivid descriptions of filthy pools, chicanery among officials, and experimentation with just about any stroke that could push humans faster. If you swim at any level or simply care about how a popular sport develops, The Watermen is a great read.”
—Kevin Salwen, author of The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle

“The Watermen is not simply a sports tale, but a sensational book about courage, the power of the mind over the physical body, ambition, along with the history of the Olympics. A triumph of originality and craftsmanship.”
—Roseanne Montillo, author of Fire on the Track

“A thrilling sports story about the power of perseverance in the Victorian age, The Watermen kept me up late into the night. There are three underdogs in this story – Charles Daniels, American swimming, and the modern Olympic Games—and I rooted for them all.”
—Lydia Reeder, author of Dust Bowl Girls

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