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Stagg's University: The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Big-Time Football at Chicago (Sport & Society)

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Problems facing college football programs today include paying players, questionable player eligibility, and the fact that the bottom line is money-money-money. This book shows that these same problems were a factor in the development, rise, and fall of one of the pioneer college football programs.

Book gives insight into the history of the University of Chicago football program. Book focuses on the policy behind opponent scheduling, maintaining the eligibility of marginal students, and the issues of money-money-money. Good review of Stagg's career at the school, where he was viewed as the most important figure at the university for most of his tenure. Fine review of the decision to discontinue the sport, the first school from a major conference to do so.

Author Robin Lester chronicles the program - a national power from 1892-1939 - which captured a pair of national titles and seven Big Ten Conference (Western Conference) championships, along with having the first Heisman Trophy winner - halfback Jay Berwanger, 1935 - before the university abandoned the sport from 1940-1962.

And there is the larger-than-life coaching icon, Amos Alonzo Stagg, who was at the helm of the program from 1892-1932, who oversaw the grand success, while shaping the game through a number of revolutionary innovations and in the forefront of organizing the Big Ten Conference.

But as the last several years proved to be tough on the gridiron for Stagg, the seven seasons under his successor, Clark Shaughnessy, were a struggle on the field and off, as a series of digressions - that could have easily been pulled from today's sports pages or magazines - ultimately doomed the program.

While there were great victories over the years, the collapse of the team is a timeless tale of trying to play the game without following the rules.

Stagg was one of the great innovators of the game who rarely gets his due that is shares with ND Rockne, Yost of MI and Zuppke of Illinois. He was as clever off the field as on the field. He invented recruiting, and questionable tactics employed by athletic departments. The University took a principles stand against sacrificing their academic integrity in order to be competitive.