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The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation
Lyons Press
August 2014
On Sale: July 29, 2014
320 pages
ISBN: 0762791772
EAN: 9780762791774
Kindle: B00MO88GF2
Paperback / e-Book
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Non-Fiction | Non-Fiction History
It’s America’s most popular sport, played by thousands,
watched by millions, and generating billions in revenues
every year. It’s also America’s most controversial sport,
haunted by the specter of life-threatening injuries and
plagued by scandal, even among its most venerable
personalities and institutions. At the college level, we
often tie football’s tales of corruption and greed to its
current popularity and revenue potential, and we have vague
notions of a halcyon time--before the new College Football
Playoff, power conferences, and huge TV contracts. Perhaps
we conjure images of young Ivy Leaguers playing a
gentleman’s game, exemplifying the collegial in collegiate.
What we don’t imagine is a game described in 1905, not
today, as "a social obsession--this boy-killing,
man-mutillating, education-prostituting, gladiatorial sport." In The Opening Kickoff, Dave Revsine tells the riveting
story of the formative period of American football
(1890-1915). It was a time that saw the game’s meteoric
rise, fueled by overflow crowds, breathless newspaper
coverage and newfound superstars—including one of the most
thrilling and mysterious the sport has ever seen. But it was
also a period racked by controversy in academics,
recruiting, and physical brutality that, in combination,
threatened football’s very existence. A vivid storyteller,
Revsine brings it all to life in a captivating narrative.
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