Dave Revsine

A new book on football history is always welcome; despite the fact that it long since superceded baseball as the national game, there probably are more baseball histories published every year than the total number of football histories. Revsine is a genial host with an interesting story to tell, a great feel for the period, and liberal reliance on newspapers and other writings from the period he describes, roughly the twenty-five years before World War I. The book does not, however, cover much game action, nor does it describe rules changes except when necessary to clarify other points. Rather, he tells his story through the prism of the Wisconsin Badgers, particularly their star, Pat "The Kicking Kangaroo" O'Dea. Above all, the book emphasizes organizational and ethical questions such as remuneration of players, colleges overemphasizing the sport at the expense of academics, and brutality and injuries. In other words, topics which are more alive today than ever. The book is short and interesting enough that I wish that he had fleshed it out with a tad more systematic coverage of the wider game, or at least appended a timeline of rule changes and major games for the various years.… (altro)