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From the Gridiron to the Battlefield by Danny Spewak Pdf
This book tells the story of the University of Minnesota's remarkable 1941 football season as they chased a second consecutive national championship even as a divided country veered closer to total war, and chronicles the young players' contributions to the war effort in the months and years that followed.
From the Gridiron to the Battlefield by Danny Spewak Pdf
The remarkable story of a championship college football team and the sacrifices the young athletes made when Pearl Harbor forced their country into war. As the United States veered towards war during the fall of 1941, the University of Minnesota football team completed an undefeated national championship season—just fifteen days before the strike on Pearl Harbor. After the attack, players left behind college football stardom to command PT boats in the South Pacific, sweep mines on the beaches of Normandy, and join the invasion of Iwo Jima along with so many others from the Greatest Generation. In From the Gridiron to the Battlefield, Danny Spewak shares the struggles and triumphs of the Golden Gophers’ 1941 season, recalling how players battled on the field even with the threat of war hanging over their heads. When the United States finally entered the war, every member of the team participated in the war effort in one way or another. As Spewak recounts, some players remained stateside in the U.S. Navy, others sailed to the Pacific Theater and faced direct combat at Iwo Jima, while another earned a Purple Heart for his heroism at Normandy. Now more than 80 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, From the Gridiron to the Battlefield reveals the sacrifices and courage of the Greatest Generation through the eyes of the 1941 Golden Gophers.
The Rise of Gridiron University by Brian M. Ingrassia Pdf
The quarterback sends his wide receiver deep. The crowd gasps as he launches the ball. And when he hits his man, the team's fans roar with approval-especially those with the deep pockets. Make no mistake; college football is big business, played with one eye on the score, the other on the bottom line. But was this always the case? Brian M. Ingrassia here offers the most incisive account to date of the origins of college football, tracing the sport's evolution from a gentlemen's pastime to a multi-million dollar enterprise that made athletics a permanent fixture on our nation's campuses and cemented college football's place in American culture. He takes readers back to the late 1800s to tell how schools embraced the sport as a way to get the public interested in higher learning-and then how football's immediate popularity overwhelmed campuses and helped create the beast we know today. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Ingrassia proves that the academy did not initially resist the inclusion of athletics; rather, progressive reformers and professors embraced football as a way to make the ivory tower less elitist. With its emphasis on disciplined teamwork and spectatorship, football was seen as a "middlebrow" way to make the university more accessible to the general public. What it really did was make athletics a permanent fixture on campus with its own set of professional experts, bureaucracies, and ostentatious cathedrals. Ingrassia examines the early football programs at universities like Michigan, Stanford, Ohio State, and others, then puts those histories in the context of Progressive Era culture, including insights from coaches like Georgia Tech's John Heisman and Notre Dame's Knute Rockne. He describes how reforms emerged out of incidents such as Teddy Roosevelt's son being injured on the field and a section of grandstands collapsing at the University of Chicago. He also touches on some of the problems facing current day college football and shows us that we haven't come far from those initial arguments more than a century ago. The Rise of Gridiron University shows us where and how it all began, highlighting college football's essential role in shaping the modern university-and by extension American intellectual culture. It should have wide appeal among students of American studies and sports history, as well as fans of college football curious to learn how their game became a cultural force in a matter of a few decades.
The Genius of Desperation by Doug Farrar,Louis Riddick Pdf
If necessity has been the mother of invention throughout the history of professional football, it could also be said that desperation is the father. Rare are the football innovations that have occurred without an owner, general manager, coach, or player up against the wall and reaching for a way to succeed anyway. In this meticulously researched, lively book, Bleacher Report lead NFL scout Doug Farrar traces the schematic history of the pro game through these "if this/then that" moments—paradigm shifts in the game from 1920 through the present. More than just a book about schemes and strategies, The Genius of Desperation: The Schematic Innovations that Made the Modern NFL also tells the stories of the game's most prominent innovators, the adversities they endured, and the ways in which they learned to exceed their own expectations on the path to true greatness. Everyone from George Halas to Greasy Neale, Paul Brown to Sid Gillman, Bill Walsh to Chip Kelly is featured, as well as many more. The Genius of Desperation is a narrative arc through the history of the game as it's never been told before.
On November 29, 1941, Army played Navy in front of 100,000 fans. Eight days later, the Japanese attacked and the young men who battled each other in that historic game were forced to fight a very different enemy. Author Lars Anderson follows four players-two from Annapolis and two from West Point-in this epic true story, The All Americans. Bill Busik. Growing up in Pasadena, California, Busik was best friends with a young black man named Jackie, who in 1947 would make Major League Baseball history. Busik would have a spectacular sports career himself at the Naval Academy, earning All-American honors as a tailback in 1941. He was serving aboard the U.S.S. Shaw when it was attacked by Japanese dive-bombers in 1943. Hal Kauffman. Together, Busik and Kauffman rode a train across the nation to Annapolis to enroll in the Naval Academy. A backup tailback at Navy, Kauffman would go on to serve aboard the U.S.S. Meredith, which was sunk in 1942. For five days Kauffman struggled to stay alive on a raft, fighting off hallucinations, dehydration, and-most terrifying of all-sharks. Dozens of his crewmates lost their minds; others were eaten by sharks. All the while Kauffman wondered if he'd ever see his friend and teammate again. Henry Romanek. Because he had relatives in Poland, Romanek heard firsthand accounts in 1939 of German aggression. Wanting to become an officer, Romanek attended West Point and played tackle for the Cadets. He spent months preparing for the D-day invasion and on June 6, 1944 - the day he would have graduated from West Point had his course load not been cut from four years to three-Romanek rode in a landing craft to storm Omaha Beach. In the first wave to hit the beach he would also become one of the first to take a bullet. Robin Olds. The son of a famous World War I fighter pilot, Olds decided to follow in his father's footsteps. At West Point he became best friends with Romanek and the two played side-by-side on Army's line. In 1942, a sportswriter Grantland Rice named Olds to his All-American team. Two years later Olds spent D-day flying a P-38 over Omaha Beach, anxiously scanning the battlefield for Romanek, hoping his friend would survive the slaughter. 20The tale of these four men is woven into a dramatic narrative of football and war that's unlike any other. Through extensive research and interviews with dozens of World War II veterans, Anderson has written one of the most compelling and original true stories in all of World War II literature. From fierce fighting, heroic rescues, tragic death, and awe-inspiring victory, all four men's suspenseful journeys are told in graphic detail. Along the way, Anderson brings World War II to life in a way that has never been done before.
College football is a sport of rivalries—and no two teams were ever more perfectly matched than the Miami Hurricanes and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. In Perfect Rivals, award-winning sportswriter Jeff Carroll takes us inside the locker rooms and onto the gridiron, as two storied programs with very different cultures battle for national supremacy, school pride, and the soul of the game itself. Beginning with the Hurricanes’ nationally televised 58–7 pasting of the Irish at the Orange Bowl in November 1985, the two teams faced each other five times over a six-year span. The last three of those games had national championship implications, as a resurgent Notre Dame sought to reclaim its historic preeminence against a faster, mouthier, more talented Miami squad notorious for trash-talking opponents, stalking out of pregame buffets, and wearing military fatigues on the team plane. The games were marked by heartbreaking finishes, disputed plays, and nasty onfield brawls. Adding fuel to the fire was a controversial slogan created by a Notre Dame student and picked up by the press—“Catholics vs. Convicts”—which served to heighten the cultural (and, some would say, racial) tension between the opposing schools. Carroll’s fast-paced, up-close-and-personal narrative centers on a handful of colorful characters on both sides of the rivalry: the coaches, from dapper Jimmy Johnson to punctilious Lou Holtz, and the players, including Miami’s Steve Walsh, a quiet Midwesterner and one-time Holtz recruit who defied the freewheeling Miami stereotype, and devout Baptist Tony Rice, only the second black quarterback in Notre Dame history, who defined the rivalry and decided the contests. Filled with you-are-there depictions of game action and insights drawn from Carroll’s unfettered access to many of the major figures involved, Perfect Rivals is a vivid re-creation of one of the most entertaining eras in the history of college football.
In late November 1941, two college football teams—Willamette University and San Jose State—set sail for Honolulu for a series of games with the University of Hawaii. Instead of a festive few weeks of football and fun, the players found themselves caught up in the first days of the United States’ war with Japan. For two weeks after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, the young men were recruited to dig and man trenches, string barbed wire, guard hotels, and join patrols as martial law took hold in Honolulu. They arrived home on Christmas Day after a dangerous journey back across the Pacific. Almost all of the players would go on to fight in the war. This is a different kind of war story, blending battle and gridiron—along with a strong dose of human interest, of college-aged young men unexpectedly caught up in the world war. This is a story of war and football, of Pearl Harbor and the first moments of the U.S. in World War II. It is a story of the very first days of World War II as experienced by a group of young men who witnessed it firsthand—and would soon be fighting it (indeed, who were already fighting it). This is a story of heroism, courage, self-sacrifice, and duty in the maelstrom of war.
The American Football Trilogy by Walter Camp,Amos Alonzo Stagg,Lorin F. Deland Pdf
Includes the original texts: American football / by Walter Camp. Franklin Square, New York : Harper & Brothers, 1891 -- A scientific and practical treatise on American football for schools and colleges / by A. Alonzo Stagg and Henry L. Williams. Hartford, Conn. : Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company, 1893 -- Football / by Walter Camp and Lorin F. Deland. Cambridge ; Boston ; and New York : Houghton, Mifflin and Company : The Riverside Press, 1896.
In the midst of a strike and economic uncertainty, a football team from an iconic steel town just outside Pittsburgh set out to capture its sixth straight season without a loss, uniting a region and inspiring the nation. In the summer of 1959, most of the town of Braddock, Pennsylvania--along with half a million steel workers around the country--went on strike in the longest labor stoppage in American history. With no paychecks coming in, the families of Braddock looked to its football team for inspiration. The Braddock Tigers had played for five amazing seasons, a total of 45 games, without a single loss. Heading into the fall of ‘59, this team from just outside Pittsburgh, whose games members of the Steelers would drop by to watch, needed just eight victories to break the national record for consecutive wins. Sports Illustrated and other media descended upon the banks of the Monongahela River to profile the team and its revered head coach, future Hall of Famer Chuck Klausing, who molded his boys into winners while helping to effect the racial integration of his squad. While the townspeople bet their last dollars on the Tigers, young black players like Ray Henderson hoped that the record would be a ticket to college and spare them from life in the mills alongside their fathers. In Striking Gridiron, author Greg Nichols recounts every detail of Braddock's incredible sixth, undefeated season--from the brutal weeks of summer training camp to the season's final play that defined the team's legacy. In the words of Klausing himself, "Greg Nichols couldn't have written it better if he'd been on the sidelines with us." But even more than the story of a triumphant season, Nichols's narrative is an intimate chronicle of small-town America during the hardest of times. Striking Gridiron takes us from the sidelines and stands on game day into the school hallways, onto the street corners, and into the very homes of Braddock to reveal a beleaguered blue-collar town from a bygone era--and the striking workers whose strength was mirrored by the football heroics of steel-town boys on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons.
On December 11, 1941, All-American football player Dave Schreiner wrote to his parents, "I'm not going to sit here snug as a bug, playing football, when others are giving their lives for their country. ... If everyone tried to stay out of it, what a fine country we'd have!" Schreiner didn't stay out of it. Neither did his Wisconsin Badger teammates, including friend and co-captain Mark "Had" Hoskins and standouts "Crazylegs" Hirsch and Pat Harder. After that legendary 1942 season, the Badgers scattered to serve, fight, and even die around the world. This fully revised edition of the popular hardcover includes follow-up research and updates about many of the '42 Badgers, plus a new foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Maraniss. Readers and reviewers agree: Terry Frei's heart-wrenching story of Schreiner and his band of brothers is much more than one team's tale. It's an All-American story.
During World War I, American army camps, navy stations and marine barracks formed football's first true all-star teams, competing against each other and top colleges while raising millions of dollars for the war effort. More than fifty college football hall-of-famers, dozens of future generals, and two Medal of Honor winners would play for, coach, or promote military teams during the war, including Dwight Eisenhower, Walter Camp, and George Halas. In War Football: World War I and the Birth of the NFL, Chris Serb recounts a fascinating chapter of military and sports history. He details three of the best but long-forgotten seasons of American football, when college amateurs mixed with blue-collar pros on the field of play. These games showed investors a lucrative market for teams of post-collegiate stars and made players realize that their football careers didn’t have to end after college. Soon the barriers to professionalism began to fall, and within two years of the Armistice the National Football League was born. War Football explores for the first time this lost chapter of sports history and makes a direct connection between World War I and the founding of the NFL. Seven future Hall-of-Famers led the charge of more than 200 military veterans who played in, coached for, and shaped the character of the young league. Football fans, sports historians, and military historians alike will find this book a fascinating read.
Former NFL general manager and three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi reveals what makes football organizations tick at the championship level. From personnel to practice to game-day decisions that win titles, Lombardi shares what he learned working with coaching legends Bill Walsh of the 49ers, Al Davis of the Raiders, and Bill Belichick of the Patriots, among others, during his three decades in football. Why do some NFL franchises dominate year after year while others can never crack the code of success? For 30 years Michael Lombardi had a front-row seat and full access as three titans--Bill Walsh, Al Davis, and Bill Belichick--reinvented the game, turning it into a national obsession while piling up Super Bowl trophies. Now, in Gridiron Genius, Lombardi provides the blueprint that makes a successful organization click and win--and the mistakes unsuccessful organizations make that keep them on the losing side time and again. In reality, very few coaches understand the philosophies, attention to detail, and massive commitment that defined NFL juggernauts like the 49ers and the Patriots. The best organizations are not just employing players, they are building something bigger. Gridiron Genius will explain how the best leaders evaluate, acquire, and utilize personnel in ways other professional minds, football and otherwise, won't even contemplate. How do you know when to trade a player? How do you create a positive atmosphere when everyone is out to maximize his own paycheck? And why is the tight end like the knight on a chessboard? To some, game planning consists only of designing an attack for the next opponent. But Lombardi explains how the smartest leaders script everything: from an afternoon's special-teams practice to a season's playoff run to a decade-long organizational blueprint. Readers will delight in the Lombardi tour of an NFL weekend, including what really goes on during the game on and off the field and inside the headset. First stop: Belichick's Saturday night staff meeting, where he announces how the game will go the next day. Spoiler alert: He always nails it. Football dynasties are built through massive attention to detail and unwavering commitment. From how to build a team, to how to watch a game, to understanding the essential qualities of great leaders, Gridiron Genius gives football fans the knowledge to be the smartest person in the room every Sunday.
"Football! Navy! War!" by Wilbur D. Jones, Jr. Pdf
Not coincidentally, the sport of football naturally employs terms usually associated with war, such as "aerial attack," "blitz," and "trench warfare." During World War II, the United States military and colleges joined forces and fielded competitive football teams. The book highlights the Department of the Navy's role in preserving the game and football's impact on national morale and the war effort through their "lend-lease" to colleges of officer candidates, including All-America and professional players. It describes wartime college and military football throughout the globe and offers listings of college and military teams, records, scores, big games, and statistics; player and team profiles; and a glossary of period football terminology.
