College Football

 
 

God and Football: Faith and Fanaticism in the SEC by Chad Gibbs Paperback from Zondervan ISBN: 0310329221 In 2008 over six million people attended an SEC football game. They spent thousands on season tickets, donated millions to athletic departments, and for three months a year ordered their entire lives around the schedule of their favorite team. As a Christian, Gibbs knows he cannot serve two masters, but at times his faith is overwhelmed by his fanaticism. He is not alone. Gibbs and his six million friends do not live in a spiritually void land where such borderline idol worship would normally be accepted. They live in the American South, where according to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, 84 percent identify themselves as Christians. This apparent contradiction that Gibbs sees in his own life, and in millions of others', has led him to journey to each of the twelve schools to spend time with rabid Christian fans of various ages and denominations. Through his journey, he learns how others are able to balance their passion for their team with their devotion to God.

Pigskin Warriors: 140 Years of College Football's Greatest Traditions, Games, and Stars by Steven Travers Hardcover from Taylor Trade Publishing ISBN: 1589793331 This is the story of a sport's role in society, from the "leather helmet era," through the dawn of television and its tremendous impact on the college game, and up to the present era of collegiate football as "big business"--all outlined against a "blue, gray October sky" of American history. In this comprehensive history, Steven Travers breaks down the story of college football into two eras--the period prior to World War I, when the nascent sport was so dangerous that President Theodore Roosevelt proposed legislation to make the sport safer, and the "modern" era, when the popularity of football led to the development of professional leagues largely fed by college players.  He also explores our obsession with identifying winners, from controversies over poll rankings to tracking the performance of players on the short list for the Heisman or Outland Trophies. In addition to profiling the great players and their greatest games, Travers also considers how the sport has infiltrated the popular culture, listing, for example, the top eight college football movies of all time, and the origin of the term "Ivy League." Travers also compiles an impressive list of All-Americans, bowl performances, all-time winning records, winning streaks, great runs, decades and dynasties, pro football representation, and a host of other detailed criteria. It's all here: the statistics, the stories, and the lore of a game that has and will continue to dominate fall Saturdays for another hundred years to come.

ESPN College Football Encyclopedia: The Complete History of the Game Hardcover from ESPN Media Published: 2005- ISBN: 1401337031 The most comprehensive reference book ever assembled on the history of college football From South Bend, Indiana, to Lincoln, Nebraska, Palo Alto, California, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Tallahassee, Florida, college football attracts the most dedicated fans in all of sports. This book is their Bible -- a rich and exhaustive reference guide to the game's history, tradition, and lore. Based on three years of research by the nation's foremost college football experts, the book features: -Capsule histories for each of the Division 1-A programs, the Ivy League schools, and the historically black colleges -Year-by-year schedules and scores for each school -Statistical leaders from each school -Fight-song lyrics -Box scores for every bowl game ever played -Weekly AP and UPI polls dating back to 1936 -A four-color insert illustrating the evolution of each school's helmet design -Essays by the game's top wordsmiths, including Dan Jenkins, Beano Cook, Chris Fowler, and more. -And a lively round-table discussion on the state of the game with ESPN's popular GameDay team (Fowler, Lee Corso, and Kirk Herbstreit). Packed with tables and charts and designed in an easy-to-read style, the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia is sure to dazzle even the most knowledgeable fan.

Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime, and Complicity by Ken Armstrong, Nick Perry Paperback from Bison Books ISBN: 0803228104 Winner of the 2011 Edgar Award, Best Crime Fact category The adjectives associated with the University of Washington's 2000 football season mystical, magical, miraculous changed when Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry's four-part exposÃÆ’© of the 2000 Huskies hit the newspaper stands: "explosive . . . chilling" (Sports Illustrated), "blistering" (Baltimore Sun), "shocking . . . appalling" (Tacoma News Tribune), "astounding" (ESPN), "jaw-dropping" (Orlando Sentinel). Now, in Scoreboard, Baby, Armstrong and Perry go behind the scenes of the Huskies Cinderella story to reveal a timeless morality tale about the price of obsession, the creep of fanaticism, and the ways in which a community can lose even when its team wins. The authors unearth the true story from firsthand interviews and thousands of pages of documents: the forensic report on a bloody fingerprint; the notes of a detective investigating allegations of rape; confidential memoranda of prosecutors; and the criminal records of the dozen-plus players arrested that year with scant mention in the newspapers and minimal consequences in the courts. The statement of a judge, sentencing one player to thirty days in jail, says it all: "to be served after football season."

College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy by John Sayle Watterson Paperback from The Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN: 080187114X "In March [1892] Stanford and California had played the first college football game on the Pacific Coast in San Francisco... The pregame activities included a noisy parade down streets bedecked with school colors. Tickets sold so fast that the Stanford student manager, future president Herbert Hoover, and his California counterpart, could not keep count of the gold and silver coins. When they finally totaled up the proceeds, they found that the revenues amounted to $30,000--a fair haul for a game that had to be temporarily postponed because no one had thought to bring a ball!"--from College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy, Chapter Three In this comprehensive history of America's popular pastime, John Sayle Watterson shows how college football in more than one hundred years has evolved from a simple game played by college students into a lucrative, semiprofessional enterprise. With a historian's grasp of the context and a novelist's eye for the telling detail, Watterson presents a compelling portrait rich in anecdotes, colorful personalities, and troubling patterns. He tells how the infamous Yale-Princeton "fiasco" of 1881, in which Yale forced a 0-0 tie in a championship game by retaining possession of the ball for the entire game, eventually led to the first-down rule that would begin to transform Americanized rugby into American football. He describes the kicks and punches, gouged eyes, broken collarbones, and flagrant rule violations that nearly led to the sport's demise (including such excesses as a Yale player who wore a uniform soaked in blood from a slaughterhouse). And he explains the reforms of 1910, which gave official approval to a radical new tactic traditionalists were sure would doom the game as they knew it--the forward pass. As college football grew in the booming economy of the 1920s, Watterson explains, the flow of cash added fuel to an already explosive mix. Coaches like Knute Rockne became celebrities in their own right, with highly paid speaking engagements and product endorsements. At the same time, the emergence of the first professional teams led to inevitable scandals involving recruitment and subsidies for student-athletes. Revelations of illicit aid to athletes in the 1930s led to failed attempts at reform by the fledgling NCAA in the postwar "Sanity Code," intended to control abuses by permitting limited subsidies to college players but which actually paved the way for the "free ride" many players receive today. Watterson also explains how the growth of TV revenue led to college football programs' unprecedented prosperity, just as the rise of professional football seemed to relegate college teams to "minor league" status. He explores issues of gender and race, from the shocked reactions of spectators to the first female cheerleaders in the 1930s to their successful exploitation by Roone Arledge three decades later. He describes the role of African-American players, from the days when Southern schools demanded all-white teams (and Northern schools meekly complied); through the black armbands and protests of the 60s; to one of the game's few successful, if limited, reforms, as black athletes dominate the playing field while often being shortchanged in the classroom. Today, Watterson observes, colleges' insatiable hunger for revenues has led to an abuse-filled game nearly indistinguishable from the professional model of the NFL. After examining the standard solutions for reform, he offers proposals of his own, including greater involvement by faculty, trustees, and college presidents. Ultimately, however, Watterson concludes that the history of college football is one in which the rules of the game have changed, but those of human nature have not.

Bowled Over: Big-Time College Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era by Michael Oriard Hardcover from The University of North Carolina Press Media Published: 2009- ISBN: 0807833290 In this compellingly argued and deeply personal book, respected sports historian Michael Oriard--who was himself a former second-team All-American at Notre Dame--explores a wide range of trends that have changed the face of big-time college football and transformed the role of the student-athlete. Oriard considers such issues as the politicization of football in the 1960s and the implications of the integration of college football. The heart of the book examines a handful of decisions by the NCAA in the early seventies--to make freshmen eligible to play, to lower admission standards, and, most critically, to replace four-year athletic scholarships with one-year renewable scholarships--that helped transform student-athletes into athlete-students and turned the college game into a virtual farm league for professional football. Oriard then traces the subsequent history of the sport as it has tried to grapple with the fundamental contradiction of college football as both extracurricular activity and multi-billion-dollar mass entertainment. The relentless necessity to pursue revenue, Oriard argues, undermines attempts to maintain academic standards, and it fosters a football culture in which athletes are both excessively entitled and exploited. As a former college football player, Oriard brings a unique perspective to his topic, and his sympathies are always with the players and for the game. This original and compelling study will interest everyone concerned about the future of college football.

Bowls, Polls, and Tattered Souls: Tackling the Chaos and Controversy That Reign over College Football by Stewart Mandel Paperback from Wiley Media Published: 2011- ISBN: 0470373555 SI.com "College Football Mailbag" author Stewart Mandel tackles the ten issues that confound college football fans--with a new chapter on the 2007 season "An intricate tour through the ills of the college football world (and there are many), but still manages to take on a breezy, airy tone." ----The Quad, NYTimes.com "Stewart Mandel writes about college football's major controversies with a wit and depth of knowledge that will impress even the most obsessed fans. And because he's both fair and objective, there is something in this book to infuriate nearly everyone." ----Warren St. John, author of the bestselling Rammer JammerYellow Hammer: A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania "In a book dripping with sarcasm, Stewart Mandel plays tour guide on an interesting ride through the college football nuthouse." ----Bruce Feldman, author of Meat Market and senior writer for ESPN the Magazine "If you're confused by the world of college football, particularly the BCS and how the present polls are conducted, then I will recommend to you Bowls, Polls & Tattered Souls." ----Football Outsiders "Presents history and insights on all aspects of the sport, from recruiting to the bowl system to why certain teams play in certain conferences. A great read for fans with thirty days or thirty years of experience." ----Orlando Sentinel If your heart beats faster on Saturday afternoons as your team takes the field, this book will give you new insight into the fanaticism and chaos that characterize college football today. Stewart Mandel takes a provocative, hard-hitting look at the hot-button issues: the controversial BCS; the polls and their largely arbitrary rankings; the ego-inflating recruiting craze; cheating and recent scandals; the huge pressures and salaries heaped on coaches; the Heisman hype-fest; the NFL draft; the clunky conference expansions; privileged Notre Dame, college football's greatest juggernaut; and the proliferation of bowl games. You'll get behind-the-scenes insights on how the issues evolved and why some are almost impossible to resolve in a book that's as entertaining, passionate, and thought-provoking as the game itself.

[no image] The USA TODAY College Football Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Modern Reference to America's Most Colorful Sport, 1953-Present by Bob Boyles, Paul Guido Paperback from Skyhorse Publishing ISBN: 1616082259 "The biggest feast for the college football fan ever published."--Newark Star-Ledger The result of fifteen years of exhaustive research, The USA TODAY College Football Encyclopedia is without question the most comprehensive resource on college football ever set to type. Authors Bob Boyles and Paul Guido watched thousands of hours of game films, and read through just about every book ever published on the game to bring this massive reference to fruition. In these pages you will find information unavailable in any other single publication: · Recaps of more than 8,000 games  · Detailed reviews of more than fifty-seven college football seasons  · Complete season-by-season lineups and records of more than seventy major programs  · Personality profiles of some of the game's biggest stars and coaches  · Season-by-season award winners, All-American teams, polls, and NFL drafts The book also includes the authors' own College Football Performance Formula, a three-leveled calculation developed to measure the achievement of every team's season since 1953. that permits readers to compare teams within a given season and to compare teams from different seasons. Updated through the 2011 NFL Draft, The USA TODAY College Football Encyclopedia is a unique book that all true fans of college football should have on their shelves. Co-op available ·

Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football by John U. Bacon Hardcover from Farrar, Straus and Giroux Media Published: 2011- ISBN: 0809094665 Three and Out tells the story of how college football's most influential coach took over the nation's most successful program, only to produce three of the worst seasons in the histories of both Rich Rodriguez and the University of Michigan. Shortly after his controversial move from West Virginia, where he had just taken his alma mater to the #1 ranking for the first time in school history, Coach Rich Rodriguez granted author and journalist John U. Bacon unrestricted access to Michigan's program. Bacon saw it all, from the meals and the meetings, to the practices and the games, to the sidelines and the locker rooms. Nothing and no one was off limits. John U. Bacon's Three and Out is the definitive account of a football marriage seemingly made in heaven that broke up after just three years, and lifts the lid on the best and the worst of college football.

The Assembly Line
by Milt Tenopir, Tom Osborne
(Paperback)
 

Backyard Brawl : Inside the Blood Feud Between Texas and Texas A & M by W. K. Stratton Hardcover from Crown

Backyard Brawl: Inside the Blood Feud Between Texas and Texas A & M
by W. K. Stratton
(Hardcover)

Bowl Games: College Football's Greatest Tradition
by Robert M. Ours
Hardcover from Westholme Publishing

The Crimson Tide: An Illustrated History of Football at the University of Alabama
by Winston Groom
(Hardcover)

Destiny's Dogs: Georgia's Championship Season
by Mark Schlabach, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(Paperback)

Echoes of Notre Dame Football: Great and Memorable Moments of the Fighting Irish (with 2 audio CDs)
by Joe Garner, et al
(Hardcover)

Fighting Irish : The Myth, The Magic and the Mystique of Notre Dame Football
by Ron Smith, Joe Hoppel, The Sporting News
Hardcover from McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Distributed Products

Forty-Seven Straight: The Wilkinson Era at Oklahoma
by Harold Keith
Paperback from Univ of Oklahoma Pr (Trd)

 

Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger, Rob, Jr. Clark Secular religions are fascinating in the devotion and zealousness they breed, and in Texas, high school football has its own rabid hold over the faithful. H.G. Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, enters into the spirit of one of its most fervent shrines: Odessa, a city in decline in the desert of West Texas, where the Permian High School Panthers have managed to compile the winningest record in state annals. Indeed, as this breathtaking examination of the town, the team, its coaches, and its young players chronicles, the team, for better and for worse, is the town; the communal health and self-image of the latter is directly linked to the on-field success of the former. The 1988 season, the one Friday Night Lights recounts, was not one of the Panthers' best. The game's effect on the community--and the players--was explosive. Written with great style and passion, Friday Night Lights offers an American snapshot in deep focus; the picture is not always pretty, but the image is hard to forget. Amazon.com Paperback from DaCapo Press

Greatest Moments in Ohio State Football History by None Hardcover from Triumph Books

I Ain't Never Been Nothing but a Winner: Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's 323 Greatest Quotes About Success, on and Off the Football Field
by Paul W. Bryant, et al
(Hardcover)
 

The Junction Boys: How Ten Days in Hell with Bear Bryant Forged a Championship Team by Jim Dent Paperback from Griffin Trade Paperback

Ohio State's Unforgettables
by Bruce Hooley
(Hardcover)

Ohio State '68: All the Way to the Top: The Story of Ohio State's Undefeated Run to the Undisputed 1968 National Football Championship
by Steve Greenberg, Larry Zelina
(Hardcover)
 

One Great Game : Two Teams, Two Dreams, in the First Ever National Championship High School Football Game by Don Wallace Hardcover from Atria Books

Quotable Rockne: Words of Wit, Wisdom & Motivation by and About Knute Rockne, Legendary Notre Dame Football Coach (Potent Quotables)
by John Heisler, Knute Rockne
(Hardcover)

Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming
by Terry Frei
The story of the memorable 1969 college football match between Texas and Arkansas.
(Hardcover)

Personal Foul: Coach Joe Moore vs. The University of Notre Dame
by Richard Lieberman
(Hardcover)
 

Pigskin Pulpit: A Social History of Texas High School Football Coaches by Ty Cashion, O. A. Phillips from Texas State Historical Assn ISBN: 0876111681

Quotable Woody: The Wit, Will, and Wisdom of Woody Hayes, College Football's Most Fiery Championship Coach (Potent Quotables)
by Monte Carpenter, Woody Hayes
(Hardcover)
Out of Print - Try Used Books

The Road to Glory
by Josh Heupel, et al
(Paperback)
 

Rites of Autumn: The Story of College Football by Richard Whittingham, Roger Staubach Rites of Autumn: The Story of College Football, the companion book to the ESPN series of the same name, is an attractive, broad, yet detailed history of college football, from the first game through the latest bowl victories. Not only does author Richard Whittingham include comprehensive rankings of the top teams, players, and coaches throughout the last century-plus (such as Heisman Trophy winners or the greatest team rivalries), he highlights the choice games and plays, as well as the coaches and gridiron legends that have put their indelible stamp on this truly American sport. Amazon.com Hardcover - 297 pages (September 25, ) Free Press; ISBN: 0743222199

Sooner Century: 100 Glorious Years of Oklahoma Football
by J. Brent Clark, et al
Hardcover: ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.94 x 12.35 x 9.43
Publisher: Quality Sports Publications;
ISBN: 1885758049
 

Sports Illustrated: The College Football Book by Editors of Sports Illustrated Hardcover from Sports Illustrated ISBN: 1603200339 Continuing its series of spectacular coffee-table books for the holiday season, Sports Illustrated presents The College Football Book, the ultimate gift for America`s most passionate fans. SI launched this series in 2005 with The Football Book, devoted to the professional game. A New York Times best-seller that year, the book has taken root as a perennial, selling more than 200,000 copies to date. Now the editors of Sports Illustrated return to the gridiron, this time to serve the most avid football fans of all. With the best words and pictures SI has to offer, The College Football Book, brings to life the game`s unparalleled excitement and pageantry, its legendary players, historic teams and epic rivalries. In 288 pages of the greatest photography and writing available anywhere, The College Football Book spans the sport`s history, from its infancy in the 1800s right up to the postseason showdowns of 2008. The book is packed with stunning pictures, award-winning stories, original stats, decade-by-decade all-star teams and iconic artifacts photographed exclusively for this book at the College Football Hall of Fame--the same exciting mix of elements that makes each book in the SI series a must-have for sports fan.

The Sweet Season: A Sportswriter Rediscovers Football, Family, and a Bit of Faith at Minnesota's St. John's University
by Austin Murphy
(Hardcover)

Tales from Michigan Stadium
by Jim Brandstatter
Book Description: - Tales from Michigan Stadium takes you behind the scenes for some of the great moments in University of Michigan Football history. From "Kip" Taylor, who scored the first touchdown at Michigan Stadium in the late '20s, to Lloyd Carr, the Wolverines' current head coach, you'll get details of the stories you've heard about, and some that you haven't. Players who knew Yost, Oosterbaan, Crisler, Elliott, and Schembechler tell their stories about practice, famous plays, and games from one of the most tradition-rich football programs in collegiate history
Hardcover: 224 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.81 x 8.52 x 6.02
Sports Publishing, Inc.; ISBN: 1582613532;

Tales from the Missouri Tigers
by Alan Goforth
Hardcover from Sports Publishing, Inc.

Talking Irish: The Oral History of Notre Dame Football
by Steve Delsohn
(Paperback)

True Blue: The Carm Cozza Story
by Carm Cozza, et al
(Hardcover)

The Undefeated: The Oklahoma Sooners and the Greatest Winning Streak in College Football
by Jim Dent
(Hardcover)

Undefeated, Untied, and Uninvited
by Kristine Setting Clark
(Hardcover)

Greatest Moments in Iowa Hawkeyes Football History
by Mark Dukes, et al
(Hardcover)
Out of Print - Try Used Books

Touchdown : The New Approach to Scholarships and the College Football Decision
by Ed Locker, Donald Zoloty
(Paperback)
Out of Print - Try Used Books
 
 

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