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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good look at Southern Football, both good and bad, November 15, 2000
I did not attend an SEC school but consider myself a passive follower. I do live in Memphis which was featured in the book and am subjected to how ingrained football culture is to the South. This book does an exceptional job of relaying this and while the author is a fan, he covers some of the taboo areas and allows the reader to make some judgements.The writer discloses early that his father played football and he played baseball at Tennessee. I think he did a fair job of not being overly biased although clearly there are more stories about Tennessee and semi-negative stories about their chief rival, Alabama. Be forewarned that this book does not cover all schools but instead focuses on selected short stories. Schools covered are Tn, Fl, Ala., Ga., Vandy, Auburn and LSU with at least one featured chapter. Exceptional chapters covered Steve Spurrier and Phil Fulmer, coaches at Fl and TN. I learned a lot about football from these chapters and came away with greater respect for both men. The Florida/Tn and Florida/GA rivalry are covered in depth and present a great backdrop of what players, fans and coaches endure at an SEC football weekend. Also, the chapters on the Vandy player and Vandy coach give you greater respect for their outlook on football. The chapters that create the most controversy will be on recruiting. He follows the recruiting of a nationally ranked Memphis player, Albert Means. Needless to say, it is not too positive with allusions of cheating but no real proof. The most controversial chapter is 6 where he highlights a wealthy Memphis businessman, Logan Young, who is supposedly buying players for Alabama, and Roy Adams, a talkative, obsessed fan for Tennessee who likes to get close to players, real close. This chapter highlights everything that is wrong with college football with these grown men's obsession with 18 year old boys. Clearly Logan Young loses the writer's popularity vote as the Alabama fan who supposedly buys players. But here is where the writer's research fails him. Mr. Adams, the other fan, who clearly enjoys being the center of attention, brags about being close to players and can't understand why past TN coaches have been rude to him about his meddling with players. I'm surprised the author did not explore this issue and question what this individual's "real" agenda is. He admits to having players over to his house and it wouldn't take much research to find this out. As stated in the book, the writer took a lot of his information from Internet chat lines. Maybe a little more time should have been spent interviewing people in Memphis about this individual and players that had been to his house. Logan Young would still have come across poorly but I suspect most readers would be outraged by the other gentleman's interests. The writer does a good job of trying to act like an impartial observer and while it's clear that he loves football, in the last chapter he touches on how this obsession can be negative for fans and players. It's a business. And all for "Bragging Rights" so one fan can say for a short period of time, "I'm better than you."
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Trip off the Beaten Path in Southern Fried Football, March 17, 2002
The author, and many others, will argue that the SEC is *the* conference for college football. It is a conference of strong rivalries and tough attitude. It's also, as Ernsberger looks at, a conference of athletes who happen to be students, rather than the collegiate student-athlete. He brings up the warts - problems with recruiting, low graduation rates, questionable ethics with athletic departments overseeing athlete tutoring. But these are more of a bookend to the story - a story of rivalry, of politics, of winning above everything else. This is where the heart of the book is, and where Ernsberger comes across as the privelaged observer, rather than someone with an axe to grind. He's not in awe of everything, but he's not out to rip back the veneer of college football either. Arguably, the book does have it's leanings. Only about half the conference is really explored with many of the schools getting the short shrift and barely a mention. But if you have never been to a big SEC rivalry game, he tries to capture the mood both inside and outside the stadium. You see the lead up to the Auburn-Alabama game (though strangely, he never seems to refer to it by it's common moniker of the Iron Bowl), and the Cocktail Party (Georgia vs. Florida). One of the strengths of the book is that he spends time with all level of participants in this spectacle - the players themselves, the caching staff, the boosters, the administration, the fans and the alumni. The picture drawn shows that everyone is partially to blame for the state the conference is in. As a passive spectator of the SEC especially after moving to Atlanta, Ernsberger drew together a lot of what swirls around into a coherent package. Everything you need to know? No. A damning expose? No. An interesting overview - yes. This is why you want to read the book.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
SEC is for real!, November 10, 2000
By A Customer
Being from Ohio, I grew up on the Big Ten and always thought they were the best that college football had to offer. Reading this book about the SEC has changed my mind! It is the premier conference in the country as far as teams being competitive from top to bottom. Ernsberger really captures the heart and soul of southern football. Big Ten fans are mild to the SEC wackos! It's great reading for any college football fan.
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