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| Believe it or not, at the Berlin Games in '36 Adolph Kiefer might have been more famous to Germans and Americans than David Hasselhoff |
I once joked with my girls high school team that some day I might be considered amazing enough to have an action figure of me made. (If we ever get off our lazy butts and try to monetize this site it is gonna happen. You know you want a Chris DeSantis action figure.) My girls felt sorry for me and my sad delusions and actually put a cape on a Ken doll and cut out a picture of my face to glue to it. Sweet gesture, I guess...
Anyway, my other fantasy is to have a comic book made of me, so you can imagine how jealous I was when I happened upon the Adolph Kiefer comic on-line. Comic book history fascinates me as much as swimming history, so I double drooled over this golden age gem telling the story of one of the most iconic Olympic gold backstrokers in history.
If you don't know much about his history, you need to read up... he revolutionized backstroke in his time, was pulled out of a warm-up once by Hitler himself, ( I read a quote once that said something like "if I had any idea who this short silly man was I would have punched him in the face!") and says his most important work was coming up with training methods to help our military drastically reduce drowning rates. Oh yeah... and he owns that swim shop up in Chicago. You know, the one that sells "everything but the water." This was an amazing guy. I have met a few people who say that one of their thrills in swimming is having a conversation with the sharp-witted and friendly man.
Please take time to learn about Adolph and read the full comic. You might actually recognize the names of some of his coaches and competitors as well. Chris actually featured a pool in Cool Water that was named for one of them.
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