Missouri College Books

A true labor of love, this book was put together by two alumni who bleed Black 'n Gold. They did this on their own time and put up their own money to get the book printed.
Filled with terrific images and interviews this book looks at inspiring wins and lamentable losses by talking with some of the key players and coaches associated with the games.
Even if you are a life-long MU Tiger fan - as I am - you'll probably learn something from the various chapters covering Mizzou football from Pitchin' Paul Chrisman to Brad Smith to the legendary Don Faurot, who created the Split-T formation that revolutionized college football for decades.
This would make a great Holiday gift. It should be considered a "must-have" by all MU Tiger fans.

This book is a must for Missouri football fans! It's interesting and well-written, and the photos are great. Kudos to the authors.

This book is great for having around while watching a game on TV. The chapters are short, allowing the reader to pick it up during commercials, read a chapter and set it back down when the game is back on.
The book takes about 30 games in Mizzou's football history and relives them. Pictures from what appears to be game films help bring the chapters to life. And some of those pictures are ones I've never seen before.
If you were at the game, you'll recall it in detail with the help of the book. If you weren't at the game, you'll come close to feeling that you were.
Even some of the cheerleaders are featured in the chapter about the origin of the M-I-Z Z-O-U cheer.
If you're a Missouri football fan you've got to get the book or ask someone to give it to you as a present. You won't regret it.

Off The Rim is, in my opinion, better than last years's "To Hate Like This Is To Love Forever." Both the author and I grew up in small towns in North Carolina in the fifties, and I could see my town and my friends on every page.

I recommend this book to anyone who grew up playing basketball in the 1950s and 1960s. This is a fascinating story of the rural south and the fervent culture that developed around college basketball.

Is there anything stranger than the psychology of the sports fan? Are there human beings other than religious martyrs that endure more suffering for such ephemeral, fleeting rewards? Before we had Nick Hornsby's Fever Pitch; now, in Fred Hobson's immensely entertaining new memoir, we have an American version of the lifelong sports fan. Even Hobson's title, Off the Rim, suggests the pain of it all - the near-miss that in the end may count more than the perfect shot, the swish. This is truly a guy's book--a book by and about a guy. Indeed, allow me to confess that, in this age of gender equality, I for one find it difficult to imagine a female version of the inveterate, die-hard fan that Hobson so painstakingly paints, maybe because I think too highly of women. Nonetheless, this is also a tale for women readers--a cautionary tale in which they can gain a glimpse into the interior life of the men in their lives, those fans whose love of sports is part of an elaborate strategy to protect their inner boy. It also seems not to matter that Hobson has been a lifelong fan of a team, the University of North Carolina Tarheels, with an incredible winning record. Maybe that's why Cubs fans seem so patient--do they already know the evanescent nature of the pleasure of victory, compared to the deep, lingering angst (the joy?) of losing?

Hobson's book is a great read, even in the middle of summer and hence as far from the winter season of college basketball as one can get, for as Hobson informs us, for the true fan, there is no off-season, no time without dread. Basketball, like life, is all about getting ready as a youngster . . . and then enjoying a lifetime of reminiscing. Put a stethoscope to Hobson's heart, and what would one expect to hear if not the echoing bounce of a basketball in a musty summer gym?

I've long been a fan of David Swanger's work. I love how the straightforward simplicity of his poems' language and structures releases nuanced emotion. His maturity, as a poet and as a person, results in poems that shimmer with the mysteries of "the big questions," while cloaked in the most ordinary and intimate of interactions.

While thinking about this review, it occurred to me that "Wayne's College of Beauty" can be viewed, in part, as a modern man's journey through the "Seven Stages of Life." Some of the poems reach back to when his children were young, such as "My Daughter's Morning," "her sparkle is as the edge of new/ice on leafed pools, while I/am soggy, tepid; old toast." (This poem, as well as "Patriarch of the Lake," has been featured by Garrison Keillor on "Writer's Almanac.") In "Longer," a teenage daughter struggles with her questions about death as she talks with her father in the middle of the night. "The girl/glistens, a rosy dolphin riding/swells of seamless youth and health,/yet she worries.../If sleep has an opposite, it is/not waking, but the imagination." At the other end of the scale are poems that capture, with equal honesty and perception, the confusion, loss, and tender sweetness of a parent aging. I think of my own mother as I read "The Lessons": "Fathers diminish like fallen snow."

And then there is the voice of "something else" (knowledge? experience? imagination?) present in the very last poem of the book, "What the Wing Says," perhaps Swanger's greatest, and most mysterious. How simply it appears to speak: "Dismiss the grocer of your soul./Nothing important can be weighed." But how far it wants to take us -- I almost said "unimaginably" far, but that's the opposite of what the poem is asking. "Does the future move in only one direction?/Think how roots find their way, how hair spreads/on the pillow, how watercolors give birth to light./Think how dangerous I am, because of what I offer you."

David Swanger may be formally retired from teaching, but his lessons keep coming every time we open his books.

Here is a poet who has not received the acclaim he so deserves. Yes he has some respectable awards... he is, afterall, a professor Emeritus at UCSC ...and a Harvard grad; but why hasnt the poetic community realized his genius and bestowed more honors upon this man; especially when reading this book... I suppose its true that many great poets arent discovered until they die... but if you want to catch him in life... I suggest you read this NOW. Swanger's poems are a gift to us; embrace that gift.

I have been searching for good resources regarding the architectural style known as collegiate gothic. This book provides a good, broad look at the development of this style at one college, Rhodes (previously Southwestern). The book gives a thorough review of the planning and acquisition of the current campus. It continues through the various stages of building that have occurred up to present times. The key figures of each of the periods of construction are highlighted. Discussion is non-technical, but does not omit key aspects of the process (I speak as an architect).

If you are interested in how a campus can--sometimes tenuously--maintain one style throughout its life, this may provide insight. If you love beautiful buildings that are well photographed, this book could grace your coffee table.

This lavishly illustrated book is aa source of delight to anyone who has a feel for local history, and will be enjoyed by all who have any connection with Dubuque. It begins in earliest times and goes through to 1988, with the sure touch of one who has mined the records and has the scholar's respect for what he has found. I know of no local history book which is its equal.

A lighthearted look at higher education - A must read for anyone who works at a university.

"Life in the Valley of Death" by Edward R. Ward is an excellent and highly thought provoking book that can be appreciated by NCAA Basketball devotees and also the shrinking minority of social students looking to learn more about race relations, structural racism, and sociological interaction through the deceptively small scope of Missouri Valley Conference basketball in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Ward begins with a brilliantly and thoroughly researched guide through that brief period of college basketball history. He leads the reader through the information with intelligence, sensitivity and subtle humor.

He closes the book with a discussion of the philosophical and sociological implications of the tumultous time of sports history where segregation, contempt for black people and the desire to win was balanced on a political, social, and academic tight rope.

Any reader will find that once one finishes with the body of content, the actual reading is only half way over, as Ward has tightly packed his end notes with additional anecdotal and general facts, findings and reflections that range from Bill Walton's coaching tips to postmodern analysis of diversity within large institutions.

Ward's quality of prose never disappoints and shows that he not only possesses the ability to research, but also the skill of storytelling.

David Masciotra

This book is an excellent insider guide into both the university and the city of Saint Louis. The facts in this book are given by students, so it ultimately is the best guide into how SLU really is. I definitely recommend the book if you are considering SLU or even attending. I have learned so much about the university that I would otherwise would not have learned by reading this book. And it is by no means a boring read.... I found the university more desirable after reading it.

Kept me laughing all weekend. Lots of stories, even lectures, besides the jokes--all with the regional twist.

Because the author took the time to talk with dozens of Missouri players and most of the living coaches, Tales from the Missouri Tigers captures a ton of great moments in the school's sports history.

I liked that it gave me a "behind-the-scenes" look at many of my favorite Mizzou games and accomplishments, especially what the players and coaches were experiencing. As a relativly new Tigers fan (since the early 1990's) I was also very interested in the stories from as far back as the 1940's and 50's -- I especially enjoyed reading about Missouri Football's golden age in the 1960's -- something I had heard mentioned now and again, but never knew the details. The author deserves a lot of credit for tracking down so many players and coaches from this era and earlier!

Overall, the author did a great job at providing a lot of history in an enjoyable, easy-to-read way. The book made me a more appreciative fan and I learned some great facts about my school's sports heritate.