Wow! eBook
The B.A.A. at 125: The Official History of the Boston Athletic Association, 1887-2012
Author(s): John Hanc (Author), Matt Damon (Foreword)
- Publisher: Sports Publishing
- Publication Date: 1 April 2013
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 114 pages
- ISBN-10: 1613211988
- ISBN-13: 9781613211984
Book Description
- Nine out of the fourteen members of the US team participating in the modern Olympic Games in Athens (1896) were B.A.A. athletes.
- The B.A.A. launched the first US marathon, the Boston Marathon, in 1897.
- The B.A.A. pioneered and actively promoted many of today’s popular sports, including football and water polo.
- The original B.A.A. club house, in the historic Back Bay section of Boston, is the precursor of today’s health club.
Still, the B.A.A. story is not simply one of athletic achievements and firsts. It’s also the dramatic story of people and the times in which they lived—a social history that unfolds in nineteenth-century Boston but takes readers around the world, up to the present, and includes a large and international cast of characters. A wonderfully illustrated history,The B.A.A. at 125 highlights the Boston Athletic Association’s important role in American sports history.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Runner’s WorldJohn Hanc, the author, over the 114 pages and one hundred photographs, does a yeoman’s job at giving the reader a real feel of the Boston Athletic Association. This is a must read for any sports fan, and especially, if one runs or follows the sport of athletics.”
—RunBlogRun
But, if one is interested in understanding the vision and the ideals of why this race has become one of the world’ s great marathons, then John Hanc’s new book on the Boston Athletic Association,
The BAA at 125, fulfills and inspires those seeking these answers.”—Runner’s Gazette
John Hanc’s account of the history of the BAA ends with the happy assertion that 125 years after the BAA organized itself, the purpose of the Marathon remains the nurturing of the dreams of thousands of ordinary individuals who toil to cross their own finish lines.’”
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