College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy (Paperback)

by John Sayle Watterson (Author) "In the 1890s college football had already created strong emotions of love and hate..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York Times, Notre Dame, Big Ten (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Since its rude beginnings in 1875, college football has become a vivid icon linking students, alumni, and the general public. Watterson (Thomas Burke, Restless Revolutionary ) painstakingly details the development from an overly rough, rugby-like battle to the highly organized, semi-professional game of today. (A disastrous 0-0 Yale-Princeton championship game in 1881 resulted in the first-down rule.) In the sport's early years, Harvard president Charles Eliot wanted it banned, but it was defended by Princeton's Woodrow Wilson. From the 1920s on, well-paid celebrity coaches like Knute Rockne made football big business. The years after World War II brought real integration, professional football's impact, TV, and more scandals. This frank account is a good fit for most academic and large public libraries.DMorey Berger, St. Joseph's Hosp. Lib., Tucson, AZ
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
In this carefully researched and thoroughly documented examination of college football, Watterson, an assistant professor at James Madison University, resurrects long-forgotten scandals and controversies that are amazingly similar to today's headlines. Current debates over "spearing"--using the head as a weapon--resemble outrage over the "flying wedge" in the game's early days. Overzealous recruiters in the twenties would entice young prep school phenoms to leave school a year early to enter a university and play football. Sound familiar? As Watterson meanders through a century of college-football history, readers will realize that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Through the years, ineffectual attempts have been made to reform the sport, but to no avail. In that spirit, Watterson offers his own solutions, but they are too radical to ever be implemented. This is a thoughful, intellectually challenging historical examination of college football that places today's headlines in the context of a century of controversy. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (October 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080187114X
• ISBN-13: 978-0801871146
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #96,860 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy, November 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy (Hardcover)

Ever since publication of the landmark work on college football's history by Allison Danzig in 1956 ("The History of American Football"), sport historians have been patiently waiting for another well-written work about college football's storied past which would bring the tale up to modern times. After any number of unsuccessful attempts by various authors, at long last we have that book with the release of John Watterson's "College Football" by John Hopkins Press; a work that is recommended by this reviewer.

Watterson, a professor at James Madison University, has previously delivered talks and written a considerable number of articles on the early history of college football, and to his book "College Football" he brings the same attention to research and an easy-to-read style of writing that has characterized his earlier work.

Rather than droning on endlessly about one season after another in college football's past that dates to 1869, Watterson has instead tackled football's history by using each chapter to examine the predominate and notable events through the years that served to gradually transform the game into what we see today. The result is a history of college football that provides an essential foundation for the novice historian, while still providing plenty of new and interesting material for the more experienced reader.

The author takes up his story with the origins of big-time football in the 19th century, including the major controversies of the 1890s that evolved from the game's increasing violence and serious injuries. After examining the crisis of 1905-1906 when college football faced the threat of being outlawed, Watterson moves on to review the more significant battles over the rules in 1910 that directly provided the origins of modern football. The struggles of 1910 ultimately overcame Walter Camp's continued opposition to forward passing and eliminated the mass plays that had evolved since 1906, a topic that is one of the most significant in the sport's history yet is frequently ignored in most attempts at football history.

Watterson continues the story of college football with the over-emphasis and abuses of the 1920s; then moves on through the hard times of the Depression, the war years, and the challenges of de-emphasis in the 1950s. A considerable amount of this material is the result of the author's tireless research, and again touches on significant material seldom seen in other football histories.

After examining the many areas that characterized the game's entry into the big-money days made possible by television, along with the NCAA's attempts at controlling the frequent recruiting scandals; the author sconcludes with chapters on African-American plays at predominantly white schools, and the revolt of the major universities against the NCAA that led to the formation of the College Football Association (CFA).

"College Football" by John Watterson is an essential work for anyone interested in the history of the intercollegiate game.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perfect.. but not for the beginners, February 2, 2001

By	Evren Genis "evreng" (Vienna, Austria) - See all my reviews

This review is from: College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy (Hardcover)

A useful book for everyone who has a long-lasting interest and knowledge on the College Football, but it can be a little bit dazy and hard-to-understand for the beginners. College Football by Watterson is an analytical book which also solves the past-time football's problems according to the periods national crisis' and situations with huge acknowledgements. If you already have a good knowledge on College Football, then you will find a lot of interesting things in this book; if you have no or a little knowledge, then I will suggest you to read easier books to prepare yourself for this book. I really liked reading and learned a lot from this book though.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Outstanding and Important Work, January 4, 2001

By	Robert Pruter "pruter" (Elmhurst, IL, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy (Hardcover)

College Football is an outstanding and important work. It is a true history--not a greatest teams and greatest players-type of celebratory writing--and falls under the rubric of sport history. Sport history, which is a subcategory of social history, relates sports to broader themes in society, and John Sayle Watterson in this regard does a terrific job in relating the history of football to the issue of collegiate life as a whole, and even to society as a whole (particularly where the colleges had to fight the pro game for the public's entertainment dollar).

College Football is published by a university press (Johns Hopkins), but it is marketed as a trade book. Thus, the misleading subtitle "History-Spectacle-Controversy," as there is not much spectacle in this book. But there is plenty of controversy, relating to violence, subsidies, and cheating scandals throughout the sport's history and the mostly failed attempts by the college football establishment to reform the sport.

Watterson's work is actually a more narrow history of the governance of college football, rather a broad history of the sport (Johns Hopkins surely did not want to put the word "governance" in the title). As such, however, College Football is the best overview of the subject ever written, primarily because the author takes the story from the beginning up to the present day.

I have some minor carping: there is an excessive number of typos and errors in this book for a university press book.