Football Books

Nile C. Kinnick played halfback at the University of Iowa and won the Heisman Trophy in 1939. He was also senior class president, a brilliant economics student, and later, a WWII Navy pilot. Paul Baender has compiled Kinnick's diary and selected letters in the life of this extraordinary man.

The first half of the book contains letters of Kinnick from his college days onward up through his Navy service. Baender does his best to provide explanations and historical context either before or after each letter. The book's second half contains Kinnick's diary, followed by Baender's explanations at the end. My only complaint is that Baender would have provided some sort of conclusive end to the book.

It is fascinating to read such wonderful prose from Kinnick's letters and diary. College life and the game of football has certainly changed since 1939, but Kinnick's hopes, dreams and struggles are the same as we feel today. He was not perfect, but I find it remarkable that Kinnick, a country boy from Iowa born long ago, recognized racial inequality in his domestic travels.

Nile Clark Kinnick was killed in on a flight training mission during WWII, one of thousands of U.S. casualties. The act of reading this compilation of Kinnick's writings has helped me see the personal courage, honor, and integrity with which thousands of veterans have served, and has helped illustrate the weight of the struggle in which we were engaged. If you want to read about a great man, pick up this book.

This book provides a great overview of the rich history of Leith's Hibernian Football Club, from it's foundation by Irish priests in 1875 to the early 1990's and the grassroots "Hands Off Hibs" campaign. With an introduction by none other than The Proclaimers, probably the club's most famous fans, this is a book that all Hibs supporters are sure to treasure.

This book is an excellent read for anyone who has a genuine interest in football statistics. The authors are actually statisticians themselves, and they go through each phase of the game and attempt to come up with scientific ways to rate each position, including the offensive line!

The part I found most interesting was the chapter on quarterbacks and the conventional NFL QB rating system and why it is flawed. From there the authors go into a lengthy process of building a better rating system, which more accurately reflects who the most efficient passers in the NFL are.

You would think being written by a bunch of statisticians, this book would be dull, but it is far from it! It is lively and humorous throughout, and is very easy to read. Also, most of the heavy statistics are relegated to notes, so if you are not interested in that sort of thing you can skip it easily.

All told this is an outstanding book to read if you are interested in learning the "Nitty-gritty" behind football statistics.

Michigan Football has more than a century of history and hundreds of thousands of living alumni cherish its tradition as part of their time at Michigan. Millions more follow the program and support it so fanatically you would swear they had a relative playing on the field! I first became a fan in high school when Bo came to Ann Arbor and our marching band (I played trombone) played at one of Don Canham's (the new athletic director who brought Bo as the new coach) Band Day programs to fill the stadium.

This wonderful book has about 200 pages of large format black and white pictures showing Michigan Football from its early years through the Michigan-Indiana game and Anthony Carter's immortal catch in 1979. My wife and I were in the stands that day and it was electrifying and something you can always recall vividly. I can still see the triple coverage, the two defenders basically falling down as Carter as he caught the ball ran past the third into the end zone.

This book has four chapter that match the natural chapters in Michigan Football history. The first chapter covers 1879-1926 that covers the pioneering days and the Fielding Yost years as coach. Chapter 2 covers Kipke and Crisler from 1927-1947 (and the great Tom Harmon). Chapter 3 covers the years when then athletic director Fritz Crisler hired former players as the football coaches. They were Bennie Oosterbaan and Bump Elliott. The fifties also had star players like Ron Kramer.

The monumental influence of the immortals Yost and Crisler carried on into the third great coach, Bo Schembechler. The final chapter covers the Bo years through 1979. I would have liked to see the book go a bit further and cover Bo's final years including the period of his bowl victories. There should also have been a picture of Bob Ufer, the ultimate homer announcer. Still, the book could only hold so much and I am sure there are lots of players and pictures that different people would wish were included. I think Michelle O'Brien has done a good job in selecting pictures that capture each period well and show us the way the team, the uniforms, and the stadiums evolved. Her captions and brief chapter introductions are solid.

Enjoy! I sure did.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

Review: The History of the Dallas Cowboys

Hawkes, Brian. The History of the Dallas Cowboys (NFL Today). Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 2005. HB, 48p, illus. list: 27.10 ISBN: 1-58341-294-8

This thin volume is heavy on photography and light on text. The device of adding "graininess" to some of the images evokes antique photos from the 60s, when the Dallas Cowboys were struggling to reach .500. But even in a few pages, the author does a great job of covering the hi-lights of the history of this storied franchise.

Hawkes accurately summarizes the struggles of those Cowboys teams, from the NFL awarding the franchise to owner Clint Murchison, to the hiring of GM Tex Schramm and head coach Tom Landry, to the deal-making that led to the acquisitions of QB Don Meredith and FB Don Perkins without the benefit of a college draft (the franchise was awarded after the NFL draft).

The Cowboys fought hard under the leadership of diminutive QB Eddie LeBaron, but didn't win consistently until Meredith took over. Still, the Cowboys lost two straight NFL Championships to the Green Bay Packers, and could not win "The Big One" until after Meredith retired and Roger Staubach took over at QB.

With Roger "the Dodger" at the controls, the Cowboys played in five Super Bowls in the 70s (winning two) and was the winningest team of the decade, earning for themselves the title of "America's Team".

The winning ways continued after Staubach's retirement in 1979 -- with QB Danny White and RB Tony Dorsett leading the way, the Cowboys played in three straight NFC championship games to open the decade of the 80s, but again, the Cowboys could not finish the seasons with a championship. The worst was yet to come, as the Cowboys finished the decade with losing records every year from 1986-1989.

A new era dawned when Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys in April, 1989. Even though the Cowboys went 1-15 in 1989, changes were underway. Jimmy Johnson replaced the legendary Tom Landry as head coach, and quickly turned the team around. Johnson traded star RB Herschel Walker to the Vikings for a bevy of players and draft picks.

Jones and Johnson parlayed those choices into three Super Bowl championships in the early 90s. Led by the dynamic "Triplets" of WR Michael Irvin, QB Troy Aikman, and RB Emmitt Smith, the Cowboys dominated the 90s, but again finished the decade on a down note, making the playoffs but not advancing.

After finishing 5-11 in 2002, Jones hired Bill Parcells as head coach, and he immediately turned the team around, leading them to a 10-6 finish in 2003. The Cowboys looked poised to once again be successful in the 2000s.

© Fred Goodwin, February 2, 2008

This is a must read for Razorback fans and a super read for football fans. Schroeder did an excellent job of covering the ups and downs of Razorback football. This book was so good that I have bought several for gifts! WOOOO PIG SOOIE!!!

This book was written by George Allen back when he was Head Football Coach and Professor of PE at Whittier College in Whittier California. This book along with Football Scouting Methods by Steve Belichick are the two oldest books on scouting football that I know of. Today teams exchange film and do not exchange visits the way they did in the past. So this book is of course out of date when it comes to the specifics. However it provides an interesting look at football scouting methods and techniques back in the 1950's and 1960's.

The book covers the following main sections

1. Why a textbook on scouting
2. History and development of scouting
3. Definition of scouting
4. Qualifications of a scout
5. Reasons for scouting
6. Theories on scouting
7. Techniques of scouting
8. Self Scouting
9. Scouting reports
10. Summary, etc.

The book is probably only of interest if this niche of football history is of interest to you. You might find a copy in a local library or an old used book store.

I really loved how the father in this story got behind his son, even when he picked a sport that the dad had little or no understanding of. I got that impression that, to the dad, it was not what sport his son was playing that was important, but instead it was the fact that it was his son playing that mattered.

I am a high school football coach. My son is 6 months old. If he picks (heaven forbid) to not play football, I want to be able to see that the value is in whatever he does and that it should be important to me because it is important to him.
This is a great book for all fathers to read-- especially if you think your son is going to be the best at (fill-in whatever sport or activity you want) instead of thinking that you are going to let him know that he is the best son you could have ever asked for, no matter what.

This book helps to remind me of my most important job-- to be a supportive father.

As a baby boomer, I just missed the years of "the greatest generation." This book captures the best of what that era produced.

A man of humble beginnings, without pretense and without pursuit of glory, rose to glorious heights anyway. A football hero, a World War II hero and a man faithful throughout to his country, family and morality, achieved things that most of us can only dream of. This is a great, heart warming and inspirational read!

Jere Longman has written an excellent book chronicling one parish's reaction to Hurricane Katrina, focusing on the high school football team but weaving in incredibly useful information about the people and history of Plaquemines Parish and all of Southeast Louisiana. It's a story of the importance of football in the fabric of a community in southern Louisiana.

Having played high school football in Louisiana myself "back in the day", I recognized so much in the story of coach Cyril Crutchfield and the Plaquemines Parish residents. The loud, profane and physical football coach. The sheriff's deputies who were former players themselves and still long to ride the bus with the team to away games. The players whose entire lives revolve around the sport. The anachronism of the wealth of resources and the grinding poverty of that part of the world. It really hit home.

The book is well-written and balanced - as an example, Longman strives to present the Belle Chasse side of the Plaquemines Parish feud, rather than simply showing the South Plaquemines/Port Sulphur side. And by tracking Randall Mackey, Jamal Recasner and the Bastrop Rams, he shows the intertwining of relationships in that part of the world.

As this review is written, Coach Crutchfield, Ridge Turner, Lyle Fitte and the rest of the Hurricanes are on their way to another state championship. One Times-Picayune reporter recently noted that they only way the Hurricanes don't win state is if they give up the sport of football between now and December. I recommend you read this book, and follow the Hurricanes through the rest of their season.