"Horrifying stuff that we desperately need to know." - Scott Ostler, sports columnist, San Francisco Chronicle Backed by hundreds of interviews and thousands of pages of USA Swimming files subpoenaed by the FBI, Irvin Muchnick uncovers a generation of cover-ups involving some of the sport's biggest names 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 gained some sense of the problem from the USA Gymnastics scandals, but for generations, the crimes in swimming have 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 feet of individual villains but also at a system that casually commodifies and sexualizes the vulnerable and non-consenting, prioritizing the pursuit of athletic scholarships, Olympic medals, glory, and riches. Underwater arrives 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.

Derrière les paillettes et les muscles, Wrestling Babylon révèle l’envers sombre du catch : drogues, scandales et morts prématurées. Un enquête choc qui interroge notre fascination pour le spectacle et ses excès.

"Football's massive popularity is undeniable, as are the many reasons players and fans are drawn to the game. But what is also undeniable is the game's brutality and the troubling aspects of football culture at all levels. To whatever extent the reader shares Irv Muchnick's perspective and conclusions, the evidence and arguments he presents deserve thoughtful attention." - Bob Costas, Emmy Award-winning sportscaster "Muchnick's jeremiad digs deeper than ever into the greed and hypocrisy of high school and college football, and the trail of broken bodies left in their wake. His information on the perils of conditioning is essential reading and might save your kid's life." - Robert Lipsyte, author of The Contender and SportsWorld Football's concussion crisis is well known, with our Hall of Fame heroes behaving erratically and dying young. But did you know that kid players across the continent die every year before a single ball is snapped - just from extreme conditioning drills directed by all-powerful coaches? And then, when the unimaginable happens, the football world simply buries the evidence, pays off victims' families, and moves on ... Without Helmets or Shoulder Pads presents the shocking stories of young men struck down by exertional heatstroke and other, often unacknowledged, causes. Taking the conversation about football and public health to a new level with investigations of the sport's underreported worst tragedies and cover-ups it makes the case that no matter how much we enjoy America's most popular sport at elite levels it belongs out of our public schools and off our public fields.

Muchnick lays bare the murder-suicide of Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy, and their seven-year-old son, Daniel. The Benoit murder-suicide in 2007 was one of the most shocking stories of that year in any realm, and a seminal event in the history of wrestling. Featured on episode SE7ENTEEN of the My Favorite Murder Podcast "Irvin Muchnick is hell-bent on discovering the essence of the cover-ups, the nuts and bolts of the investigations..."- Wrestling Observer "The Ultimate Historical Edition" extends the 2009 true crime account by connecting it to it to someone who was then a bit player in the wrestling world: Donald Trump. A new introduction reflects on Trump's business ties to WWE's McMahon family, how wrestling "attitude" came to define the populist, demagogic Trump presidency, and their similar scandal management playbooks. Muchnick - the author of Wrestling Babylon and a co-author of Benoit: Wrestling with the Horror That Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport -drilled down deep into public records and interviewed dozens of witnesses, inside and outside wrestling, to put together the authoritative account of the events of the gruesome June 2007 weekend in Fayette County, Georgia, during which World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Chris Benoit murdered his wife Nancy and their seven-year-old son Daniel, before proceeding to kill himself. But this book goes beyond the crime itself to answer some of the most important questions behind it. The biography of Benoit, a wrestler's wrestler, makes it clear that his tragedy was a microcosm of the culture of drugs and death behind the scenes of one of North America's most popular brand of sports entertainment. The author probes the story of the massive supplies of steroids and human growth hormone found in his home - all prescribed by a "doctor to the stars" who got indicted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and all dismissed by a WWE "wellness policy" that promoted everything except its talent's wellness. The Benoit case led to unprecedented scrutiny of wrestling's overall health and safety standards, by Congressional investigators and others, and this book is the primary source of what they found and what they should continue to look for.