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  • Sanctioned Savagery

    A History of Violence in American Football

    American football was a violent sport from its beginning as a college game in the 1870s and 1880s, in part because learning how to deal with the pain and violence, to “take it,” made men out of college boys. Michael Oriard, former NFL linebacker and professor emeritus of English, shows us that this fundamental belief persisted for more than a century, until signs of chronic traumatic ... Read more

    $22.79 USD

  • The End of Autumn

    Reflections on My Life in Football

    Much of Michael Oriard's education took place outside the schoolroom of his native Spokane, Washington, during "slaughter practices" on high school football fields. He was taught to "punish" and "dominate," to rouse his school spirit with religion, and to "tough it" through injuries, even serious ones. At the age of eighteen he entered Notre Dame and walked onto the football team, where studying ... Read more

    $14.39 USD

  • Reading Football

    How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle

    Series series Cultural Studies of the United States
    Is football an athletic contest or a social event? Is it a game of skill, a test of manhood, or merely an organized brawl? Michael Oriard, a former professional player, asks these and other intriguing questions in Reading Football, the first contemporary book about football’s formative years.American football began in the 1870s as a game to be played, not watched. Within a brief ten years, it had ... Read more

    $28.49 USD

  • Brand NFL

    Making and Selling America's Favorite Sport

    Professional football today is an $8 billion sports entertainment industry — and the most popular spectator sport in America, with designs on expansion across the globe. In this astute field-level view of the National Football League since 1960, Michael Oriard looks closely at the development of the sport and at the image of the NFL and its unique place in American life. New to the paperback ... Read more

    $14.29 USD

  • King Football

    Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio and Newsreels, Movies and Magazines, the Weekly and the Daily Press

    This landmark work explores the vibrant world of football from the 1920s through the 1950s, a period in which the game became deeply embedded in American life. Though millions experienced the thrills of college and professional football firsthand during these years, many more encountered the game through their daily newspapers or the weekly Saturday Evening Post, on radio broadcasts, and in the ... Read more

    $28.49 USD

  • Bowled Over

    Big-Time College Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era

    In this compellingly argued and deeply personal book, respected sports historian Michael Oriard — who was himself a former second-team All-American at Notre Dame — explores a wide range of trends that have changed the face of big-time college football and transformed the role of the student-athlete.Oriard considers such issues as the politicization of football in the 1960s and the implications of ... Read more

    $18.99 USD

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  • America's Game

    It’s difficult to imagine today—when the Super Bowl has virtually become a national holiday and the National Football League is the country’s dominant sports entity—but pro football was once a ramshackle afterthought on the margins of the American sports landscape. In the span of a single generation in postwar America, the game charted an extraordinary rise in popularity, becoming a smartly ... Read more

    $14.99 USD

  • Season of Saturdays

    A History of College Football in 14 Games

    From an award-winning sports journalist and college football expert: “A beautifully written mix of memoir and reportage that tracks college ball through fourteen key games, giving depth and meaning to all” (Sports Illustrated), now with a new Afterword about the first ever College Football Playoff.Every Saturday in the fall, it happens: On college campuses, in bars, at gatherings of fervent alumni ... Read more

    $13.99 USD

  • Forty Million Dollar Slaves

    The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “An explosive and absorbing discussion of race, politics, and the history of American sports.”—EbonyFrom Jackie Robinson to Muhammad Ali and Arthur Ashe, African American athletes have been at the center of modern culture, their on-the-field heroics admired and stratospheric earnings envied. But for all their money, fame, and achievement, says New York Times columnist ... Read more

    $12.99 USD

  • Black Ball

    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA

    A vital narrative history of 1970s pro basketball, and the Black players who shaped the NBAAgainst a backdrop of ongoing resistance to racial desegregation and strident calls for Black Power, the NBA in the 1970s embodied the nation’s imagined descent into disorder. A new generation of Black players entered the league, among them Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Spencer Haywood, and the press and public ... Read more

    Was $17.99 USD Now $15.99 USD

  • Rebound!: Basketball, Busing, Larry Bird, and the Rebirth of Boston

    Basketball, Busing, Larry Bird, and the Rebirth of Boston

    In the mid-1970s, the city of Boston entered a period of upheaval on both its historic cobblestone streets and its legendary parquet basketball court. The Boston Celtics' long dominance of the NBA came to an abrupt end, and the city's image as a hub of social justice was shaken to its core. When the federal courts declared, in 1974, that the city was in violation of school desegregation rulings ... Read more

    $17.99 USD

  • Crazy '08

    How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History

    From the perspective of 2007, the unintentional irony of Chance's boast is manifest—these days, the question is when will the Cubs ever win a game they have to have. In October 1908, though, no one would have laughed: The Cubs were, without doubt, baseball's greatest team—the first dynasty of the 20th century.Crazy '08 recounts the 1908 season—the year when Peerless Leader Frank Chance's men went ... Read more

    $12.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus