Gene Kentuck Oberst

Once timesaving innovations gave Americans leisure time, the golden age of sports emerged.

Enter Gene Oberst. Born with a disability, it took a haphazard event involving a stray javelin to make the entire world, and Gene himself, realize he was more than a bookworm-he was a natural-born athlete.

Growing up in a Twain-like, Ohio River town, the ideals of his large, self-sustaining family and their dedication to educate themselves fed Gene's persistent and diligent nature.

That determination led him to play college football for the national championship, Notre Dame team under legendary coach Knute Rockne with the Gipper and perhaps the most renowned backfield of the century. Then he went on to the highest achievement for athletes-the Olympics.

Including fascinating stories taken directly from Gene's Olympic journal, this biography offers a firsthand, behind-the-scenes look at one of the most persistent and innovative athletes of the 1900s and the other pioneering athletes and iconic coaches who shared in his success, and led the way to football's glorious future and America's fascination with the Olympics.

Covering the journeys Gene's ancestors took during their emigration to America from Germany to Gene's time journeying to the epic Chariots of Fire Olympics in Paris, follow the story of the miraculous and obstacle-defying life of American Olympian Gene Oberst.