College Football by John Sayle Watterson

College Football by John Sayle Watterson

In this 100-year history of America's popular pastime, John Sayle Watterson shows how college football evolved from a simple game played by college students into the lucrative, semi-professional enterprise it has become today. He covers the infamous Yale-Princeton "fiasco" of 1881, the reforms of 1910, how college football grew in the booming economy of the 1920s, and the revelations of illicit aid to athletes in the 1930s. He also explains how the growth of TV revenue led to college football programmes' unprecedented prosperity. 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.

Watterson provides a broad overview of the rise, demise, and rise again of college football over the past century. . His coverage of the facts—the scandals, the commissions, committees, and conferences—is not likely to be surpassed, either in depth of detail or sharpness of analysis.
—Kirkus Reviews
Carefully researched and thoroughly documented . . . This is a thoughtful, intellectually challenging historical examination of college football that places today's headlines in the context of a century of controversy.
—Booklist
Watterson painstakingly details the development from an overly rough, rugby-like battle to the highly organized, semiprofessional game of today.
—Library Journal
Sweeping and definitive history . . . [Watterson's] overall analysis of college football and its place in American culture is superb.
—Lane Hartill, Christian Science Monitor
Working with an impressive assortment of historical materials and documents, Watterson documents how, over the years, reformers have made the game less hazardous for players and more exciting for spectators.
—Allen L. Sack, Chronicle of Higher Education
Scholarly and fair.
—Michael Curtin, Columbus Dispatch
This is an excellent book for serious scholars of both football and general sports history.
—Choice
A thick, deeply argued book, full of passion, anecdote, and a well-reasoned, if protracted, argument.
—Steven P. Gietschier, Journal of Illinois History
This book is an important contribution to sports history, and to a better understanding of the place of organized athletics in American culture.
—Timothy Wood, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
College Football is the best single volume for someone who wants to understand how the game evolved and how larger political, social, and economic forces affected its development.
—John M. Carroll, Georgia Historical Quarterly

John Sayle Watterson teaches sports history at James Madison University and is the author of Thomas Burke, Restless Revolutionary.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780801864285
ISBN 10	0801864283
Title	College Football
Author	John Sayle Watterson
Condition	Unavailable
Publisher	The Johns Hopkins University Press
Year published	2000-12-27
Number of pages	528
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.