College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy
Watterson provides a broad overview of the rise, demise, and rise again of college football over the past century... His coverage of the facts—the scandals, the commissions, committees, and conferences—is not likely to be surpassed, either in depth of detail or sharpness of analysis.(Kirkus Reviews)Carefully researched and thoroughly documented... This is a thoughtful, intellectually challenging historical examination of college football that places today's headlines in the context of a century of controversy.(Booklist)Watterson painstakingly details the development from an overly rough, rugby-like battle to the highly organized, semiprofessional game of today.(Library Journal)Sweeping and definitive history... [Watterson's] overall analysis of college football and its place in American culture is superb.(Lane HartillChristian Science Monitor)Working with an impressive assortment of historical materials and documents, Watterson documents how, over the years, reformers have made the game less hazardous for players and more exciting for spectators.(Allen L. SackChronicle of Higher Education)Scholarly and fair.(Michael CurtinColumbus Dispatch)This is an excellent book for serious scholars of both football and general sports history.(Choice)A thick, deeply argued book, full of passion, anecdote, and a well-reasoned, if protracted, argument.(Steven P. GietschierJournal of Illinois History)This book is an important contribution to sports history, and to a better understanding of the place of organized athletics in American culture.(Timothy WoodPennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography)College Footballis the best single volume for someone who wants to understand how the game evolved and how larger political, social, and economic forces affected its development.(John M. CarrollGeorgia Historical Quarterly)One of the finest books on sports history I have ever read. The best such books successfully analyze a particular topic and then shed light on much broader issues, and on those grounds Watterson has succeeded. He effectively places college football in the larger context of American social, economic, cultural, and political life, and in doing so transcends the narrow confines of sports history... The scholarship is outstanding.(James S. Olsonco, author ofWinning Is the Only Thing: Sports in America since 1945)