OCR Text |
Show JOHNNY WEISSMULLER IS SWIMMING MARVEL Places Several World's Records Upon the Books. Possesses Remarkable Ability to Propel Pro-pel Himself Through Water No Distance Is Too Short and None Too Long. A little more than a year ago, a member entered the Michigan avenue home of the Illinois Athletic club with a slender sixteen-year-old youth who had ambitions to become affiliated with the Chicago organization which was famous for Its record-breaking swimming swim-ming teams. The boy knew that ho could swim. He had read about the li I 1 Johnny Weissmuller. great tricolor swimmers, Perry Mc-Gilllvray, Mc-Gilllvray, Norman Ross, Hebner, Vos-burgh Vos-burgh and others and he wanted to cast his lot with them. The member, however, was skeptical of the youngster's young-ster's chances of gaining a place against the galaxy of stars already in the I. A. C. fold. But after listening to the boy's appeal for more than a month, he finally promised to intro-' duce him to Coach Bachrach, the tricolor tri-color trainer of watermen. Finally one day the boy's persistence was rewarded and he was taken over to the I. A. C. pool and brought before Coach Bachrach. "Here's a fellow who thinks he can swim," was the member's half-hearted explanation for taking up the coach's time with an unknown youngster. Slipping into the pool, the boy traveled trav-eled through the water with a crude stroke but one that showed unusual power. Immediately Coach Bachrach realized that he had what is known in sporting parlance as a "find." Today the boy, Johnny Weissmuller, Is the greatest swimmer of the present age, undoubtedly the greatest swimmer swim-mer of all time. The boy has placed several new world's records upon the books and his uncanny speed through the water Is to a large measure responsible re-sponsible for the four world's marks which the Illinois Athletic club relay teams have created. So remarkable Is his ability to propel himself through the water that amost every time he plunges headlong an old record posses Into oblivion. For It has come to pss that Weissmuller seldom tries for a new world's mark without attaining hid cwd. No distance Is tao j,hort; none too long to be safe from hla watermanship. |