This is the story of a sport's role in society, from the leather helmet
era, through the dawn of television and its tremendous impact on the
college game, and up to the present era of collegiate football as big
business--all outlined against a blue, gray October sky of American
history. In this comprehensive history, Steven Travers breaks down the
story of college football into two eras--the period prior to World War
I, when the nascent sport was so dangerous that President Theodore
Roosevelt proposed legislation to make the sport safer, and the modern
era, when the popularity of football led to the development of
professional leagues largely fed by college players. He also explores
our obsession with identifying winners, from controversies over poll
rankings to tracking the performance of players on the short list for
the Heisman or Outland Trophies. In addition to profiling the great
players and their greatest games, Travers also considers how the sport
has infiltrated the popular culture, listing, for example, the top eight
college football movies of all time, and the origin of the term Ivy
League. Travers also compiles an impressive list of All-Americans, bowl
performances, all-time winning records, winning streaks, great runs,
decades and dynasties, pro football representation, and a host of other
detailed criteria. It's all here: the statistics, the stories, and the
lore of a game that has and will continue to dominate fall Saturdays for
another hundred years to come.
