Gene "Kentuck" Oberst

📖 The Scoop

Gene Oberst won the USA's first track & field medal at the 1924 Paris Olympics. He also played on Notre Dame's first National Championship football team becoming an All-American in two sports.

This 2024 Centennial Edition delves deeper into the history of the Olympics, explores the wonders of Paris, and emphasizes the pivotal role the Golden Decade of Sports had in shaping the future of sports.

Once timesaving innovations gave Americans leisure time, the Golden Decade 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, 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, where he played with the Gipper and perhaps the most renowned backfield of the century, the Four Horsemen. 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.

Genre: Sports & Recreation / Olympics & Paralympics (fancy, right?)