Customer Reviews

How Football Explains America

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

After writing The Paolantonio Report last year, Sal Paolantonio has done it again. I read 'How Football Explains America' and it is amazing to see how the creation of football and the concepts associated with football are truly American. This is a must read for ANY football fan! As a fan of American history and a football fanatic, I couldn't put it down.

This is an entertaining and enlightening book that will change the way you think about football. You'll learn about the introduction of the quarterback position. You'll learn how the early pioneers in the game changed the rules of the rugby-soccer hybrid they inherited from Europe in order to better reflect the hardscrabble reality of the American frontier. You'll learn about the intricate connections between an American war hero, the football program at West Point, and some of the most successful coaches in football history. Most of all, you'll learn why this is a uniquely American game, and will be prompted to reflect on those values and experiences that make America unique.

The book is a fast-paced read uncommon among history books. It is entertaining and informative for football fans and non-sports fans alike. Highly recommended. For another useful review, make sure to check out: (http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/giants/2008/09/free-giants-tickets.html)

How Football Explains America is a fast-paced highlight reel of the game's first two violent centuries. Narrator Sal Paolantonio pauses the action to explain the mental side of the game -- the pioneers, tacticians and innovators -- and what pro football derived from the military, show biz and most importantly, the American spirt.

You'll learn about the deaf quarterback who ran the first huddle, how John Wayne begat Johnny U and Eli Manning, and what Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells owe to General Douglas MacArthur. It's a star-spangled testosterone-soaked tribute to America's favorite pastime. You can't understand ancient Rome without touring the Colliseum and you won't fully understand pro football's enduring grip on the American male psyche until you read Professor Paolantonio's little gem of a book.

I knew I was in for a bumpy ride when I flipped this book open at the library and learned that the US accepted the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII on the deck of the USS Yorktown. Really? I would think a book that equates NFL greatness with American greatness would get the fact that the surrender was actually signed on the USS Missouri. Any writer worth his Victor Davis Hanson quotes who asks the reader to discard lefty "political correctness" and embrace conservative rah-rah about American exceptionalism (ie, Manifest Destiny is all good) needs to get the history right. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe video of "The Catch" (or whatever your favorite football moment is) really does dwarf the famous images of surrender on a US battleship in Tokyo Bay. If only MacArthur had known about NFL Films :-)

Not the best football book, either, by far. I know Paolantonio intends to gloss over college football in order to genuflect at the altar of the NFL, but his sweeping history of the game seems to miss "Pop" Warner entirely. Maybe Warner's innovative game of passing and misdirection plays, which brought obscure Carlisle Indian School to national prominence, didn't mesh with his Manifest Destiny schtick. Don't get me wrong, though - college football is a deeply corrupt industry and deserves another book.

Still, the football-is-America thesis has some merits. He should have gone into the history of drugs in the NFL and how this most authoritarian sport is just like our hypocritical drug war in real life. That would've been good. Like when Johnny U. went to the Chargers, where the fabled white ethnic toughness was out, and drugs ruled the locker room. Somewhat amazingly, the NFL ***still*** doesn't have drug problem like those rotten baseball players do </sarcasm> - sportswriters seem to be under solemn oath to protect The Product.

How Football Explains America is an excellent book for fans of both football and American history. Highly recommended. I especially enjoyed the chapter "How Football Explains the '60's," which referenced both Bart Starr and Joe Namath, two of my boyhood heroes. My only criticism is that I found two spelling errors (homophones) in the text, but what do you want? Sal's a sports guy, not an English teacher, and the editing staff should have corrected them. Anyway, an excellent read prior to the NFL playoffs.

An entertaining read, although it did not live up to my expectations. To be sure, there are elements of American culture and history that help explain how the game of football evolved and why the game enjoys such a following in the United States versus the rest of the world. However the author too often makes large claims of causation without much proof besides correlation. There are a number of "just-so stories" used to explain the relationship between football and America. Unfortunately, the author does not use a consistent amount of rigor across each chapter. Additionally, some chapters simply ramble on, meandering far from the author's stated purpose. There are interesting stories and anecdotes to be sure, but overall the book lacks coherence. There are a number of quite interesting chapters, but overall it is a decent, not great, book.

I couldn't put it down. A wonderful view on how football, basically, explains life. I knew it all along! Enjoy!