How Football Explains America (Hardcover)

by Sal Paolantonio (Author)
Key Phrases: how football, Super Bowl, New York, West Point (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Paolantonio, a television football correspondent, opens with an intriguing question: Why does conventional wisdom say that it was television that made football so popular, when other countries that have television are not the slightest bit interested in the game? What if the truth was exactly the opposite—football helped make television? The book relates the evolution of the sport to the evolution of the country: just as America declared its independence from England, so American footballers redesigned the game and made it independent from the British import, rugby. And just as immigrants to the U.S. helped build the country, so various ethnic groups helped build football. The parallels between football and combat are obvious, but Paolantonio doesn’t hammer at them, preferring instead to talk about the way the sport captured the interest of its fans to a degree that few recreational pursuits ever equaled. The hyperbole of its title aside, this volume has surprisingly insightful things to say about football as a sociocultural phenomenon. Expect some interest beyond football fans. --David Pitt

Product Description
Here at last is the first book to fully explain how and why the game of football became America's most powerful and financially successful entertainment phenomenon--and how this country's pioneers of sports, games, industry, and politics helped transform a sleepy game inherited from Europe into one that would explain what America wanted to become and who we are as a people.

In How Football Explains America, Sal Paolantonio, ESPN football reporter and a former national political reporter, takes you all the way back to 1876, when the United States was celebrating its 100th birthday, and explains how and why the stodgy and low-scoring games of soccer and rugby were rejected for a game that reflected America's lust to control--Manifest Destiny!--an entire continent.

How Football Explains America takes you through how and why President Teddy Roosevelt saved football, how and why Jim Thorpe and Bill Walsh changed the game, and how and why it was influenced by Hollywood and West Point.

How Football Explains America explains how football was influenced by Davy Crockett, John Coltrane, Jackie Robinson, and Douglas MacArthur.

How Football Explains America shows how at the heart of this country's real pastime is an insatiable need for storytelling and mythmaking, how Johnny Unitas is like John Wayne and Joe Montana is like Luke Skywalker, how the game grew up when pioneers and cowboys set out to write America's story across the West, and how football was a game that perfectly explained that march across the continent.

"Football explains America," says NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, "because the game is about teamwork and camaraderie, competition and passion, strategy and energy, strength and emotion. You can look at football and see the heart of America."

How Football Explains America takes you through a fascinating historical and cultural journey, using the intrigue, skullduggery, and drama of the 2007 NFL season--the quest for perfection and triumph of an underdog against all odds--to tell the story of a game and a nation that have been sewn together and explain how we live, work, and play.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 211 pages
• Publisher: Triumph Books (IL) (September 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1600780466
• ISBN-13: 978-1600780462
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #66,586 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just for Football Fans, September 8, 2008

By	Donald Sico (Riverton, New Jersey) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This might very well be the most literate sports book I have ever read. If you like football, you will love it. If you like history, you will be fascinated. If you like politics, there is something there for you as well. How Football Explains America is the ONLY sports book I have ever brought into the house that my wife has enjoyed!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Answering the most important questions about America's biggest game..., September 13, 2008

By	John McDonald - See all my reviews

It's easy to answer any number of questions about America's (real) national pasttime: What is it about the game that so captivates people every Sunday? Why do 100 million people watch the Super Bowl each year? How did the game get so...big? But Sal Paolantonio ups the ante by searching for -- and finding -- the answer to the most meaningful and revealing question of all: Why America is the only place in history football could be. "How Football Explains America" is at once a history of our game and a reflection on our country. It's a book born out a love for the sport that millions and millions of Americans have shared. But at its heart it's a patriotic work -- a glimpse at how football has become a perfect expression of the best the United States of America has to offer.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Classic For History Courses, October 3, 2008

By	John Fitzgerald (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A great new book. An excellent new book. A magnificent theme.

This book should be used in history classes throughout the United States. Sal Paolantonio shows how the best qualities and leaders in the course of our country's history have impacted football -- and how the structure of football has benefitted therefrom. Teddy Roosevelt and Bill Parcels; General MacArthur and Bill Walsh; John Coltrane and Johnny Unitas -- all in one book (and rightly so).

Sal Paolantonio deserves acclaim. He crystallizes for us how shared commitment, shared sacrifice, and shared determination are the hallmarks of football, just as they have in other major episodes throughout course of U.S. history.