Jenkins, Sally. The Real All Americans. New York: Doubleday, 2007.
Sally Jenkins examines the Carlisle football team with Jim Thorpe and their dramatic victories over major college football clubs at the turn of the 20
th
Century, culminating in a victory over Army in 1912. The descriptions of the formative stages of college football also provide a wonderful analysis of the early decades of the game. A brutal and violent sport, football was dominated by Ivy League institutions and there was little regard for the rules and competitive spirit of the game. Jenkins writes a fantastic narrative tying together all of the cultural, historical, racial and contextual information about Native Americans in a Christian society, and the successes and failures of all involved. The book also provides vast insight into Pop Warner, Richard Pratt, Walter Camp, Amos Alonzo Stagg and Teddy Roosevelt.
MacCambridge, Michael. America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football
Captured a Nation. New York: Anchor Books, 2005.
Michael MacCambridge has produced an outstanding account and analysis of modern professional football in America. During the past thirty years, the National Football League has eclipsed all other sports in popularity and revenue and has become many American sports fans' obsession. MacCambridge scrutinizes the industry of professional football and the important decisions made by commissioners, owners and televisions executives, leading to a thriving consumer-driven enterprise. The NFL, more than any other sport, is a game made for television, which propelled the league into the national spotlight in the 1960s and keeps it there today. Pete Rozelle's vision of competitive balance on the field and revenue sharing among clubs ensured a narrative that fans embraced.
Oriard, Michael. Brand NFL: Making & Selling America's Favorite Sport. Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press. 2006.
Michael Oriard explores the establishment of the NFL as big business; it is a multi-media and entertainment enterprise in which Americans are willing to watch religiously and spend their hard-earned funds. Oriard's book is a first-rate history of the game, and its development from a second-tier entertainment business to the summit of the sports landscape in the late 1950s and 1960s. The author, a former pro-player himself, balances football and its personalities, such as Vince Lombardi and Joe Namath, with the awakening of football as a giant in America's consumer culture, primarily under the timely leadership of Commissioner Pete Rozelle. Conquering all competitors, the National Football League is more than a collection of athletes. It is a multi-billion dollar industry that has mastered marketing and branding, featuring media-savvy owners who have benefited by technological advances in the consumer market.
