Joe Grossman
Joe Grossman (1925-1974) of the U.S.A. was a promoter and administrator/secretary of the World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation and the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame. He was inducted in the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame in 1979 as an Honour Administrator and honored with the inaugural 1970 Irving Davids / Captain Roger W. Wheeler Memorial Award for Meritorious Service to Long Distance Swimming.
Grossman is considered by many to be the Founding Father of the modern era of marathon swimming. As a public information officer by profession, he traveled the world on his job, taking these opportunities to promote marathon swimming, to establish personnel contacts and lay the necessary groundwork to bring unity to the marathon swimming programs.
Marathon Swimming Promotion and Administration
- Grossman was involved in all aspects of administration, organization and promotion of professional marathon swimming .
- Grossman is considered by many historians as the Founding Father of the modern era of marathon swimming.
- Grossman was instrumental in the formation of the World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation (WPMSF).
- Grossman served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation beginning in 1963.
- Grossman worked to create and adopt the WPMSF Constitution.
- Grossman traveled worldwide as a public information officer and took these opportunities to promote marathon swimming.
- During his travels, Grossman laid the foundation to unify marathon swimming programs between race organizers and sponsors around the world.
- Grossman worked tirelessly to increase the prize money for professional marathon swimmers and to develop an equitable distribution of the available money.
2018 World Open Water Swimming Offering of the Year Nomination
Grossman wrote the initial draft of the book A History of Marathon Swimming that was written by Steve Walker and was nominated for the 2018 World Open Water Swimming Offering of the Year by the World Open Water Swimming Association:
In order to preserve the colorful and rich history of marathon swimming, International Swimming Hall of Fame and International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame dual inductee Dale Petranech kept alive his dream of publishing the personal files of World Professional Marathon Swimming Association administrator Joe Grossman. Despite Grossman's passing in 1974, Petranech faithfully maintained a huge stack of his personally typewritten pages for nearly 5 decades. Steve Walker edited the comprehensively compiled hundreds of pages of notes, observations, recollections and data from solo swims and competitions in numerous bodies of water around the globe. For colorfully recapturing and reformatting the incredibly detailed and long-lost slices of aquatic history over 536 pages, for publishing first-person recollections in A History of Marathon Swimming released 43 years after Grossman's death, and for enabling modern-day swimmers to savor an invaluable treasure that describes the achievements of the swimmers, promoters, coaches and pilots from 1875 to 1974 from the English Channel to the Canadian National Exhibition events, the book A History of Marathon Swimming is a worthy nominee for the 2018 World Open Water Swimming Offering of the Year.
External links
- Ralph Willard, IMSHOF Honor Swimmer
- Greta Andersen Competed Against The Best Men of Her Generation
- Colin Hill Honored By The International Swimming Hall of Fame
- From Notes To A Typewriter And A Laptop: A History Of Marathon Swimming
- Herman Willemse Describes How Swimming Changed His Life On WOWSA Live
- Reading, Not Racing. A Library Of Open Water Swimming Books
- Honoring The Legacies Of Irving Davids, Roger Wheeler
- World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation History
- International Marathon Swimming Hall Of Fame Origins
- WPMSF Led To IMSHOF
- The World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation
- A Giant Of The Sport, Joe Grossman
- International Marathon Swimming Hall Of Fame Origins
- World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation History
- International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame
- Open Water Swimming
- World Open Water Swimming Association
- WPMSF Led To IMSHOF
- World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation
- Marathon Swimming
- Open Water Swimming
- Daily News of Open Water Swimming
- Luminaries And Inductees At IMSHOF Festivities
- Time To Reflect By IMSHOF Chairman Chris Guesdon
- International Swimming Hall of Fame, Joe Grossman
- Joe Grossman Brings Alive Marathon Swimming's Past
- Open Water Swimming Dual Inductees And Dual Honorees
- Writing And Swimming Around The World
- 2018 World Open Water Swimming Offering Of The Year
- The Globalization Of Open Water Swimming
