By: Mark F. Bernstein
Narrated by: Kyle Tait
Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
Release date: 11-24-16
There was a time that Ivy league teams would be nationally ranked, have players regularly drafted by NFL teams, play in the Rose Bowl, and win national championships. Mark F. Bernstein traces the history of the universities that comprise the Ivy League, their rise to prominence, and the conference’s decline in recent years. Princeton competed in the first intercollegiate football against Rutgers in 1869, before a reported 100 spectators. Many of the facet of the game were developed under Yale’s Walter Camp, including the snap from scrimmage, the offside penalty, tackling below the waist, 11 players on either side of the ball, quarterback signals, and the first All American team. Princeton, who was the first squad to adopt a team name – Tigers, were instrumental initiating rules conferences.
Cornell’s Pop Warner devised the huddle, the screen pass, and the rolling black. The author brilliantly points out the early resistance to the forward pass, as teams were penalized for incomplete passes. While there may be debate which university had the first marching band, there is no doubt Yale’s Cole Porter wrote the team’s fight song. “Football” also discusses the early injuries in the game, and at times, the unfortunate casualties. Bernstein notes that Princeton was the first team wear numbers on their jerseys.
Additionally, the book covers the dominance of the “big three,” football during the wars, the official birth of the NCAA, the impact of television on the sport, and fall of the Ivy League from “big time” football, to I-AA status (renamed FCS in 2006). The history in the book is fascinating and the story telling is imaginative.
The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press.
