Underwater

The hundreds of millions who watch the thrilling spectacle of the Olympics are unaware of the extent to which their entertainment is undergirded by the systematic abuse by coaches of the underage athletes they develop. Many flag-waving fans got some sense of the problem from the USA Gymnastics scandals. But the crimes of swimming, for generations, have actually caused a much wider tsunami of pain and trauma around the world.

Backed by thousands of pages of FBI files and the author’s independent investigations, Underwater is the first comprehensive account of this ongoing and unacceptable phenomenon. Irvin Muchnick, a well-known chronicler of the dark side of sports, pulls together shocking stories involving some of the most iconic coaches in swimming history and some of the sport’s most celebrated programs (including Michael Phelps’s). The book lays the blame not just at the feat of individual villains, but also at a system that casually commodifies and sexualizes the vulnerable and non-consenting, making the priorities the pursuit of athletic scholarships and Olympic medals, glory, and riches.

Undercover is published just as a congressional commission has called for the first fundamental changes in the U.S. youth sports system in half a century. In the author’s estimation, this reform is the only real way to protect kids from the predation of the money-first stewards of professionalized sports.

“Irvin Muchnick made my carefully selected list of personal heroes long ago. Nobody rakes the muck, nobody shines a searchlight on human cockroaches with a more relentless sense of purpose than Irv does. Underwater is a shining example of his work. It’s horrifying stuff that we desperately need to know.”
– Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle columnist and 13-time California Sportswriter of the Year