The American Historical Review, . Red Grange and the Rise of Modern Football.
Biographers often imitate their subjects.
He was the football equivalent of baseball's Babe Ruth, boxing's Jack Dempsey, tennis's Bill Tilden, and golf's Bobby Jones. Grange believed that this hard physical labor strengthened him for the football season, and the press and the public regarded his summer job as genuine Main Street Americana. At the time, because of the myth of the scholar-athlete and the low repute of pro football, still in its barnstorming days, many higher education officials criticized Grange's decision. He replied, in his level-headed way, that the players were making the college coaches and athletic departments rich, and because he was from a family of modest means, he deserved to cash in on his football playing talents as soon as possible. This argument about collegiate amateurism recurred constantly for the remaining seventy-five years of the twentieth century and is debated in our time, with only the sums of money changing.