John Sayle Watterson's Books

The Games Presidents Play

Sports and the Presidency

By: John Sayle Watterson

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The Games Presidents Play

Sports and the Presidency

By: John Sayle Watterson

Looking at the athletic strengths, feats, and shortcomings of our presidents, John Sayle Watterson explores not only their health, physical attributes, personalities, and sports IQs, but also the increasing trend of Americans in the past century to equate sporting achievements with courage, manliness, and political competence."--Dust jacket [p. 2].

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428

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JHU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

080188425X

ISBN 13

9780801884252

The Games Presidents Play

Sports and the Presidency

By: John Sayle Watterson

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The Games Presidents Play

Sports and the Presidency

By: John Sayle Watterson

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JHU Press

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ISBN 10

080188425X

ISBN 13

9780801884252

College Football

History, Spectacle, Controversy

By: John Sayle Watterson

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College Football

History, Spectacle, Controversy

By: John Sayle Watterson

The rules of the game have changed in the past hundred years, but human nature has not. "In March [1892] Stanford and California had played the first college football game on the Pacific Coast in San Francisco . . . The pregame activities included a noisy parade down streets bedecked with school colors. Tickets sold so fast that the Stanford student manager, future president Herbert Hoover, and his California counterpart, could not keep count of the gold and silver coins. When they finally totaled up the proceeds, they found that the revenues amounted to $30,000—a fair haul for a game that had to be temporarily postponed because no one had thought to bring a ball!"—from College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy, Chapter Three In this comprehensive history of America's popular pastime, John Sayle Watterson shows how college football in more than one hundred years has evolved from a simple game played by college students into a lucrative, semiprofessional enterprise. With a historian's grasp of the context and a novelist's eye for the telling detail, Watterson presents a compelling portrait rich in anecdotes, colorful personalities, and troubling patterns. He tells how the infamous Yale-Princeton "fiasco" of 1881, in which Yale forced a 0-0 tie in a championship game by retaining possession of the ball for the entire game, eventually led to the first-down rule that would begin to transform Americanized rugby into American football. He describes the kicks and punches, gouged eyes, broken collarbones, and flagrant rule violations that nearly led to the sport's demise (including such excesses as a Yale player who wore a uniform soaked in blood from a slaughterhouse). And he explains the reforms of 1910, which gave official approval to a radical new tactic traditionalists were sure would doom the game as they knew it—the forward pass. As college football grew in the booming economy of the 1920s, Watterson explains, the flow of cash added fuel to an already explosive mix. Coaches like Knute Rockne became celebrities in their own right, with highly paid speaking engagements and product endorsements. At the same time, the emergence of the first professional teams led to inevitable scandals involving recruitment and subsidies for student-athletes. Revelations of illicit aid to athletes in the 1930s led to failed attempts at reform by the fledgling NCAA in the postwar "Sanity Code," intended to control abuses by permitting limited subsidies to college players but which actually paved the way for the "free ride" many players receive today. Watterson also explains how the growth of TV revenue led to college football programs' unprecedented prosperity, just as the rise of professional football seemed to relegate college teams to "minor league" status. He explores issues of gender and race, from the shocked reactions of spectators to the first female cheerleaders in the 1930s to their successful exploitation by Roone Arledge three decades later. He describes the role of African-American players, from the days when Southern schools demanded all-white teams (and Northern schools meekly complied); through the black armbands and protests of the 60s; to one of the game's few successful, if limited, reforms, as black athletes dominate the playing field while often being shortchanged in the classroom. Today, Watterson observes, colleges' insatiable hunger for revenues has led to an abuse-filled game nearly indistinguishable from the professional model of the NFL. After examining the standard solutions for reform, he offers proposals of his own, including greater involvement by faculty, trustees, and college presidents. Ultimately, however, Watterson concludes that the history of college football is one in which the rules of the game have changed, but those of human nature have not.

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772

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JHU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1421441578

ISBN 13

9781421441573

Newton's Football

The Science Behind America's Game

By: Allen St. John,Ainissa G. Ramirez, PH.D.

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Newton's Football

The Science Behind America's Game

By: Allen St. John,Ainissa G. Ramirez, PH.D.

In the bestselling tradition of Freakonomics and Scorecasting comes a clever and accessible look at the big ideas underlying the science of football. Did you hear the one about the MacArthur genius physicist and the NFL coach? It’s not a joke. It’s actually an innovative way to understand chaos theory, and the remarkable complexity of modern professional football. In Newton’s Football, journalist and New York Times bestselling author Allen St. John and TED Speaker and former Yale professor Ainissa Ramirez explore the unexpected science behind America’s Game. Whether it’s Jerry Rice finding the common ground between quantum physics and the West Coast offense or an Ivy League biologist explaining—at a granular level—exactly how a Big Mac morphs into an outside linebacker, Newton’s Football illuminates football—and science—through funny, insightful stories told by some of the world’s sharpest minds. With a clear-eyed empirical approach—and an exuberant affection for the game—St. John and Ramirez address topics that have long beguiled scientists and football fans alike, including: • the unlikely evolution of the football (or, as they put it, “The Divinely Random Bounce of the Prolate Spheroid”) • what Vince Lombardi has in common with Isaac Newton • how the hardwired behavior of monkeys can explain a head coach’s reluctance to go for it on fourth-down • why a gruesome elevator accident jump-started the evolution of placekicking • how Teddy Roosevelt saved football using the same behavioral science concept that Dreamworks would use to save Shrek • why woodpeckers don’t get concussions • how better helmets actually made the game more dangerous Every Sunday the NFL shares a secret with only its savviest fans: The game isn’t just a clash of bodies, it’s a clash of ideas. The greatest minds in football have always possessed an instinctual grasp of science, understanding the big ideas and gritty realities that inform the game’s rich past, as well as its increasingly uncertain future. Blending smart reporting, counterintuitive creativity, and compelling narrative, Newton’s Football takes gridiron analysis to the next level, giving fans a book that entertains, enlightens, and explains the game anew. Praise for Newton’s Football “It was with great interest that I read Newton’s Football. I’m a fan of applying of science to sport and Newton’s Football truly delivers. The stories are as engaging as they are informative. This is a great read for all football fans.”—Mark Cuban “A delightfully improbable book putting science nerds and sports fans on the same page.”—Booklist “This breezily-written but informative book should pique the interest of any serious football fan in the twenty-first century.”—The American Spectator “The authors have done a worthy job of combining popular science and sports into a work that features enough expertise on each topic to satisfy nerds and jocks alike. . . . The writers succeed in their task thanks to in-depth scientific knowledge, a wonderful grasp of football’s past and present, interviews with a wide array of experts, and witty prose. . . . [Newton’s Football is] fun and thought-provoking, proving that football is a mind game as much as it is a ball game.”—Publishers Weekly

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273

Publisher

Ballantine Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

034554515X

ISBN 13

9780345545152

College Sports

A History

By: Eric A. Moyen,John R. Thelin

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College Sports

A History

By: Eric A. Moyen,John R. Thelin

This work is the first comprehensive historical survey of intercollegiate athletics at American universities"--

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492

Publisher

JHU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1421450097

ISBN 13

9781421450094

Turning of the Tide

How One Game Changed the South

By: Don Yaeger,Sam Cunningham,John Papadakis

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Turning of the Tide

How One Game Changed the South

By: Don Yaeger,Sam Cunningham,John Papadakis

New York Times bestselling author Yaeger tells the electrifying story of the game that broke down the last racial division in college football.

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272

Publisher

Center Street

Published Date

ISBN 10

159995236X

ISBN 13

9781599952369

Brutes In Suits

Male Sensibility in America, 1890–1920

By: John Pettegrew

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Brutes In Suits

Male Sensibility in America, 1890–1920

By: John Pettegrew

“[A] vivid, massively researched history of ‘hyper-masculine’ sensibility . . . An instructive and provocative view of men’s dark side.” —Peter Filene, Men and Masculinities Are men truly predisposed to violence and aggression? Is it the biological fate of males to struggle for domination over women and vie against one another endlessly? These and related queries have long vexed philosophers, social scientists, and other students of human behavior. In Brutes in Suits, historian John Pettegrew examines theoretical writings and cultural traditions in the United States to find that, Darwinian arguments to the contrary, masculine aggression can be interpreted as a modern strategy for taking power. Drawing ideas from varied and at times seemingly contradictory sources, Pettegrew argues that traditionally held beliefs about masculinity developed largely through language and cultural habit—and that these same tools can be employed to break through the myth that brutishness is an inherently male trait. A major re-synthesis of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century manhood, Brutes in Suits develops ambitious lines of research into the social science of sexual difference and professional history’s celebration of rugged individualism; the hunting-and-killing genre of popular men’s literature; that master text of hypermasculinity: college football; military culture, war making, and finding pleasure in killing; and patriarchy, sexual jealousy, and the law. This timely assessment of the evolution of masculine culture will be welcomed and debated by social and intellectual historians for years to come. “Pettegrew’s book remains rigorous and passionate in its narration of the historic appeal as well as the immediate dangers of de-evolutionary masculinity.” —American Historical Review

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667

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

0801891728

ISBN 13

9780801891724

A History of American Higher Education

By: John R. Thelin

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A History of American Higher Education

By: John R. Thelin

Anyone studying the history of this institution in America must read Thelin's classic text, which has distinguished itself as the most wide-ranging and engaging account of the origins and evolution of America's institutions of higher learning.

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555

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Johns Hopkins University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1421428830

ISBN 13

9781421428833

College Sports on the Brink of Disaster

The Rise of Pay-for-Play and the Fall of the Scholar-Athlete

By: John LeBar,Allen Paul

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College Sports on the Brink of Disaster

The Rise of Pay-for-Play and the Fall of the Scholar-Athlete

By: John LeBar,Allen Paul

Impelled by runaway spending and rampant corruption, America's much-beloved games of college basketball and football are being threatened. The specter of billion-dollar sums being showered on coaches, voracious athletic directors, hordes of support staff and lavish comforts for fans has led to a near-deafening roar to pay the players. The injustice of such sums being amassed, in the main, from the labor of young men of color many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot be justified; and yet, American society has allowed this intractable problem to fester for more than half a century. Lured by the glitter of untold riches, naive young players enroll year after year in colleges and universities expecting the ultimate reward of a highly paid career as a pro. Only a minuscule few will advance that far; even fewer will reap significant financial rewards. Instead of educating them, colleges and universities force them into full-time athletic jobs in which their labor is shamelessly exploited. Small wonder that outraged critics demand compensation for the players, but these same critics only present vague answers when asked how such a radical change would work. College Sports on the Brink of Disaster, first published as Marching Toward Madness and now newly updated, cites twenty-one reasons why the pro-pay position is wrong, among them the prospect that the player talent pool will be concentrated to even fewer rich schools; recruiting wars will lead to more frequent scandals; and the regulatory powers of the NCAA will exponentially increase. Worst of all, pay-for-play will encourage schools to shirk even further the imperative to educate the young athletes. College Sports on the Brink of Disaster presents comprehensive reforms to end cheating and corruption in college sports, to put academics first, and to end the peonage of non-white athletes once and for all.

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Page Count

416

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

168358449X

ISBN 13

9781683584490

The Imperial Gridiron

Manhood, Civilization, and Football at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School

By: Matthew Bentley,John D. Bloom

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The Imperial Gridiron

Manhood, Civilization, and Football at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School

By: Matthew Bentley,John D. Bloom

The Imperial Gridiron examines the competing versions of manhood at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School between 1879 and 1918. Students often arrived at Carlisle already engrained with Indigenous ideals of masculinity. On many occasions these ideals would come into conflict with the models of manhood created by the school's original superintendent, Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt believed that Native Americans required the "embrace of civilization," and he emphasized the qualities of self-control, Christian ethics, and retaliatory masculinity. He encouraged sportsmanship and fair play over victory. Pratt's successors, however, adopted a different approach, and victory was enshrined as the main objective of Carlisle sports. As major stars like Jim Thorpe and Lewis Tewanima came to the fore, this change in approach created a conflict over manhood within the school: should the competitive athletic model be promoted, or should Carlisle focus on the more self-controlled, Christian ideal as promoted by the school's Young Men's Christian Association? The answer came from the 1914 congressional investigation of Carlisle. After this grueling investigation, Carlisle's model of manhood starkly reverted to the form of the Pratt years, and by the time the school closed in 1918, the school's standards of masculinity had come full circle.

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Page Count

264

Publisher

U of Nebraska Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1496213378

ISBN 13

9781496213372

Book's by John Sayle Watterson

The Games Presidents Play

The Games Presidents Play

The Games Presidents Play

The Games Presidents Play

College Football

College Football

Newton's Football

Newton's Football

College Sports

College Sports

Turning of the Tide

Turning of the Tide

Brutes In Suits

Brutes In Suits

A History of American Higher Education

A History of American Higher Education

College Sports on the Brink of Disaster

College Sports on the Brink of Disaster

The Imperial Gridiron

The Imperial Gridiron

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