Johnny Walker
Johnny Walker of Toronto, Canada was a member of the Board of Governors of the International Professional Swimmers Association founded in New York City in 1927. He coached at Toronto's West End YMCA pool where he guided the career of George Young, the a marathon swimmer from Canada who was inducted in the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame in 1963 as an Honour Swimmer and in the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2014 as an Honor Open Water Swimmer. Young won the 1927 Wrigley Ocean Marathon, a 20.2-mile open water swimming competition across the Catalina Channel in 15 hours 44 minutes, winning the US$25,000 first prize offered by William Wrigley, Jr.
International Professional Swimmers Association
The International Professional Swimmers Association was an international association organized on 21 September 1927 at the Hotel McAlpin in Manhattan, New York with its headquarters in New York City. The Association planned to issue a monthly publication to authenticate and keep records of a professional swimming events and to foster swimming throughout the world as an international sport.
Its officers included:
- William Wrigley, Jr., Honorary President
- Captain George H. Maines, Active President
- William Burgess of Dover, England, Vice President
- Elwood Hughes of Toronto, Canada, Vice President
- C. Compton of Long Beach. California, Vice President
- Lou Timson of Boston, Massachusetts, Secretary and Treasurer
Its Board of Governors consisted of:
- Edward Keating of New York
- William Erickson of New York
- Byron Summers of San Francisco
- Lottie Schoemmell of Lake George, New York
- Eva Morrison of Boston, Massachusetts
- Ernest Vierkoetter of Berlin, Germany
- Paul Chotteau of Paris, France
- William Sadlo Jr. of New York
- Ethel Hertle of New York
- Mobile Bill Jackson of Mobile, Alabama
- Leo Purcell of San Francisco, California
- May Elwell of Revere, Massachusetts
- Sam Swartz of Glens Falls, New York
- Captain T. W. Sheffield of Balboa, California
- Johnny Walker of Toronto, Canada
- Olaf Farstadt of Norway
- Ernst M. Smith of San Francisco, California
- Charles Toth of Boston, Massachusetts
- Henry Sullivan of Lowell, Massachusetts
- James Burns of New York
- Edith Hedin of Toronto, Canada
- Harold "Stubby" Kruger of Hawaii
- Georges Michel of Paris, France
- Norman Ross of Chicago, Illinois
- Clarence Ross of New York
- George Young of Toronto, Canada, Associate Member for Life
- Gertrude Ederle, Associate Member for Life
- Millie Gade Corson, Associate Member for Life
