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BIG TEN FOOTBALL: Its Life and Times, Great Coaches, Players and Games by

BIG TEN FOOTBALL: Its Life and Times, Great Coaches, Players and Games

By

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 1977
Publisher: Macmillan

Big Ten football may not be as invincible as it once was--since 1964 teams have been losing against opponents outside the conference--but the Hoosiers, Boilermakers, Illini, Wolverines, Spartans, and Buckeyes show no sign of abandoning their primordial rivalries. In recent years the two behemoths of the league have been Michigan's Wolverines and Ohio State's Buckeyes, with one or the other making the New Year's pilgrimage to the Rose Bowl. Sports-writers Hyman and White get kudos for their nifty mix of ancient and recent heroics, and if you believe that too much ink has already been spilled on OSU's Woody Hayes, then try Amos Alonzo Stagg, the incredible coach of the Univ. of Chicago in the days before Robert Hutchins banished the pigskin from campus. Stagg rounded off a venerable football career by becoming a kicking coach at the age of 91! The immortal players are here too, naturally, and if the authors sometimes engage in unabashed boosterism, who can avoid excess when extolling Red Grange, Hopalong Cassidy, Bronko Nagurski, and Archie Griffin? The perennial scandals of college football--slush funds for athletes, raiding of coaches, and such bizarre ""jobs"" for student-players as ""watching football stadiums to see they aren't stolen""--get somewhat perfunctory coverage, along with the intermittent efforts of commissioners to curb such practices. The kind of book that will start and settle many a rousing argument in Ann Arbor and Columbus.