|
Bowl Games: College Football's Greatest Tradition | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert M. Ours
Publisher: Westholme Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $16.31
You Save: $8.64 (35%)
New (13) Used (3) from $16.31
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 1013462
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 243
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 1594160015
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.332
EAN: 9781594160011
ASIN: 1594160015
Publication Date: November 1, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: New American book. Shipped within the US in 4-7 days (expedited) or about 10-14 days (standard). Standard can occasionally be slower so we advise using expedited if quicker delivery is important!
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
More than a century ago on a bright, warm New Years Day, Michigan and Stanford played a football game to top off the annual Tournament of Roses celebration in Pasadena, California. The Wolverines won easily, 49-0, and each Michigan player received three dollars for meal money during their stay in the Golden State. Little did those dusty players know that this first postseason college football game would eventually lead to one of the most watched and anticipated series of sporting events in the country, competitions that would generate millions of dollars and be used to decide the national champion. For nearly three decades, the annual football match in Pasadena was the only major postseason contest, but in the 1930s, four more bowl games were establishedthe Orange, the Sugar, the Cotton, and the Sunmarking the beginning of an American sports tradition. Soon, New Years Day meant college football. Over the years these games have featured legendary players, including Joe Namath, Billy Sims, and Bobby Layne, and some of the greatest matchups in the history of football, such as Alabamas near upset of heavily favored Duke in the 1945 Sugar Bowl and Ohio States double-overtime victory against Miami in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl. Bowl games also helped shape the sport of football. In Bowl Games: College Footballs Greatest Tradition, historian Robert M. Ours shows how new tactics and coaching techniques were routinely showcased at these games, and it was only through bowl contests that top teams who normally would never play one another were able to test their brand of football and determine who had the better squad. Bowl games were also used as charity events and morale boosters during the Great Depression and both world wars, and were among the first public forums that challenged segregation in the South. Throughout this rich history, amazing athletes and teams appear, some well-known, others forgotten. The gridiron exploits of Kentuckys tiny Centre College in the early 1920s and the great Hardin-Simmons squads of the 1930s and 1940s are featured along with top performances from future professional stars, such as Jim Brown for Syracuse and Roger Staubach for Navy. The book includes period photographs, year-by-year bowl game summaries, and a complete list of every major NCAA-sanctioned bowl played to date. Throughout, Ours traces the steady march toward using bowls to determine a national championship (although none of these schemes has succeeded so far) as well as the increase in payouts for the games. Yet when the whistle blows and the game gets under way, all attention is on the action between the white lines. Whether or not a playoff system in Division I-A college football emerges, and no matter what format bowl contests take, there will always be dramatic matchups, superlative individual performances, and enduring memories of college footballs postseason play.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Valuable addition to Football Lore May 18, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Bowl Games is a must addition to the collection of any college football fan with an interest in the sport's history and development, and especially in the creation and progress of postseason contests. This book contains all of the scores of NCAA-sanctioned bowl games since the first contest on New Year's Day 1902, with attendance figures and records of participating teams. It also includes a number of vintage photos of bowl games, and many of the outstanding team and individual bowl records.
Within the space constrictions of the book, the author in his narrative includes much anecdotal material on many games as well as highlights of the more important contests. The book catches the flavor of the days when the football season reached a climax with the New Year's Day contests while putting the modern bowl craze into perspective.
All in all, a good read and a great resource.
 Excellent reference, but narrative plods after good start February 2, 2005
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a useful source that traces 100 years of bowl games, but I was hoping for more than it delivered.
The book is an excellent reference. Every certified bowl is listed, and there are many interesting facts about bowls not easily available in one place. Ours discusses the origins of every long-established bowl, particularly the Rose. He then narrates each bowl's yearly results as "college football's greatest tradition" develops. By doing this he also traces some of the college football story. We learn how the Depression, World War II, and the civil rights struggle affected the bowls. Early on, Ours also gives more than passing attention to especially notable games and teams and touches on numerous little-known, short-lived games.
Unfortunately, the book changes about halfway through. A flowing description of the bowl and college football atmosphere becomes a plodding, dry recitation of scores and statistics. Ours tries to give some text to nearly every bowl, a worthy but tedious goal as the bowls proliferate. Sidebars spotlighting great games and performances would help. Their lack leaves an unbroken narrative that drowns out the human element with a monotonous recitation of scores, rankings, yards gained...
By the late 1980s, most bowls had title sponsors. Ours clearly loves tradition, yet he chooses to always call bowls by full corporate names. Perhaps he wants to emphasize how tacky sold names are without openly saying so? In any case, this annoyed me.
The narrative improves when the book reaches the Coalition/BCS period, as once again Ours talks about a bowl issue.
The book, completed in mid-2004, ends with the changes caused by the 2003 BCS fiasco.
In an epilogue, Ours reminisces on his first bowl memories (New Year's, 1947!), and discusses recent changes. He opines that the plethora of bowls, the various coalitions, and today's January 4 finale has diluted the magic that used to surround the bowls. (He's right!)
I appreciate the yearly summaries, but I was hoping for more discussion. Some questions I was hoping to see answered include:
* The NCAA and bowls: How is a game certified or decertified? Ours opines that there are too many bowls. Is the NCAA able or willing to do something about it?
* The Fiesta Bowl: How did this recent bowl displace the Cotton as a top bowl?
* The Orange, Sugar, Cotton, and Sun Bowls all started in the mid-1930s, yet the Sun never became prestigious. Why not?
I also would have appreciated some more treatment of the greatest and most important games and performances through the years. A chapter spotlighting games like the 1963 Rose, 1979 Cotton and Sugar, 1980 Holiday, 1984 Orange, and 2003 Fiesta would have greatly added to the book's strength. A subjective list of the 10 greatest games, coaches, and performances would make for some nice juicy arguments.
An appendix lists every game chronologically with teams' win-loss records, including the defunct games (omitted by many references). Some overall records are also listed. Surprisingly, there is no list of national champions.
If you want a useful reference about the bowls, this is a good choice. If you want the definitive book on bowls, this isn't it. Perhaps that book hasn't been written yet.
I am pleased with what the book does offer, I am glad I own it, and I learned facts about the bowls - but "Bowl Games: College Football's Greatest Tradition" could have been much more than it is.
A terrific football book November 16, 2004
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is an excellent history of how college football was transformed by bowl games. Most fans take these games for granted, but for many years there was only the Rose Bowl. Because that game featured teams from different parts of the country, the Rose Bowl slowly became the focus of deciding the best team in the nation. In the 1930s, the Cotton and Sugar were added, and from there, postseason games took off, until their results were not only used to determine the national champion, they forced the AP poll to take its final poll after these games once a few "national champions" got clobbered in bowls! Throughout, there are great anecdotes and photos. The appendices are very useful as well. It is amazing to read about Bobby Layne's 40-point performance in the Cotton Bowl, running, throwing, kicking, and catching. I found the book to be quite enjoyable.
As a final note, I agree whole-heartedly with the author that it is a shame that New Year's Day is no longer the special bowl game day it once was. It was a wonderful tradition for decades, but that has gone by the wayside with the BCS format. Oh well. By the way, readers, I have no idea what book that Publishers Weekly reviewer was looking at! Must not have been a football fan is all I can tell.
|
|
|
|
Other schools are available at CollegeFans.com | |
