How March Became Madness: How the NCAA Tournament Became the Greatest Sporting Event in America Review

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How March Became Madness: How the NCAA Tournament Became the Greatest Sporting Event in America ReviewFans of college basketball will enjoy the information and stories provided in this book. The book is a collection of interviews, set forth in story format, in which the author met and interviewed with a number of significant figures in college basketball, including coaches, media, and players.
There are many great stories here, and the book is divided up into different stories on the different personalities, so it makes for an accessible read. You can pick up the book, read one article, then put it down. I found the stories by the coaches to be among the most entertaining: Coach K, Roy Williams, Rick Pitino, Dean Smith, Guy Lewis and others all provide insightful stories.
Also, the book puts college basketball in its historical context, with a focus on the first televised basketball game, UCLA vs. Houston, played in the Astrodome. Overall a very informative and entertaining book, I would strongly recommend it to any college basketball fan.How March Became Madness: How the NCAA Tournament Became the Greatest Sporting Event in America OverviewThe March to Madness is the fascinating account of how the telecast between Houston and UCLA laid the foundation for what became one of the greatest sporting events in America.It's an account told through the voices of a who's who of great players, coaches, and announcers.

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The Wow Boys: A Coach, a Team, and a Turning Point in College Football Review

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The Wow Boys: A Coach, a Team, and a Turning Point in College Football ReviewAs a football-mad kid growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1950s, Frankie Albert, Norm Standlee and Bruno Banducci were heroes on the earliest 49ers teams. Unknown to this kid was the fact they had been teammates before, on the Stanford team that won the Rose Bowl in 1940. Their story, and the part they played with their new coach, the innovative Clark Shaughnessy, in introducing (more properly re-introducing) the T-formation offense to college football is artfully told by James W. Johnson in "The Wow Boys." It's a sparkling gem of a book that will please football fans of all ages, from those who remember to single-wing offense that the T replaced, to others simply interested in the history of the game, as well as some of its formative personalities like George Halas, Pop Warner, Buck Shaw. The author, who was raised in the Bay Area as a fan of the 49ers and who worked as a reporter for the Oakland Tribune and other newspapers before teaching journalism for many years, did plenty of research to produce lively accounts of each game in Stanford's undefeated season, as well as chapters on college football recruiting, campus life, and the "Big Game Fever" surrounding the annual season-ending game with the University of California. The authoritative and wholly entertaining book is among the best written on football at any level.The Wow Boys: A Coach, a Team, and a Turning Point in College Football OverviewIn 2002 ESPN rated football's shift to the modern T-formation offense as the second best sports innovation of all time—just behind baseball's free agency. The story behind the move to the T-formation is also the story of a season unparalleled in the annals of college football—the year Stanford's new coach, fresh from seven dismal seasons with the University of Chicago, deployed an out-of-favor offense to take a team of talented underdogs to a Rose Bowl victory.
The Wow Boys (the title refers to the nickname the team earned at its very first game) chronicles Stanford's miraculous 1940 season, from the surprise hiring of coach Clark Shaughnessy and his marshalling of the previously untapped talents of left-handed quarterback Frankie Albert, runners Hugh Gallarneau and Pete Kmetovic, and fullback Norm Standlee, to his reintroduction of the T-formation and its profound and enduring effect on football. James W. Johnson gives a game-by-game rundown of this dramatic season as well as an in-depth account of Shaughnessy's accomplishment in the face of overwhelming criticism and skepticism. This story is one of tenacity, character, and radical ideas prevailing against formidable odds—a sports revolution engineered one play at a time.

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Black Men Can't Shoot Review

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Black Men Can't Shoot ReviewI use this book in my sociology of sports class. One of my students is a retired NBA player: he says it's a realistic portrayal of his experience. The book is an ethnographic study - that is, personal observations, participation, interviews and notes - on Black kids in Philadelphia and their experience in after school basketball league. Coaches, parents and the teen boys are all given a chance to tell their story and the result is a very readable and engaging study of the structural forces and individual determination that lead to a basketball college scholarship. Or not. "You either a basketball player or a drug dealer" is my favorite quote. Does it reinforce stereotypes about inner city black youth? You decide.Black Men Can't Shoot Overview

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Varsity Green: A Behind the Scenes Look at Culture and Corruption in College Athletics Review

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Varsity Green: A Behind the Scenes Look at Culture and Corruption in College Athletics ReviewWe're all accustomed to hearing too many stories about badly behaving college athletes, many of whom might flunk a basic literacy test, and lavish college sports facilities. Even as many of us roll our eyes at these shenanigans and examples of misplaced priorities, we still tune in religiously to follow our favorite college teams -- a paradox that is at the heart of this intriguing book about the business of college sports.
I can easily see that nobody engaged in this world will be happy with what Mark Yost finds after he turns his keen eye on it. Those boosters who claim that the current system is a win-win, giving colleges great teams and youngsters a chance at an education, will be infuriated by Yost's damning indictment of an educational system that encourages young people to believe that they have a real shot at going pro via a college team (in fact, in a too-often repeated statistic, he notes that 3% of high school athletes will get a college scholarship; only 2% of those will have any kind of pro career) and then after coddling them and sheltering them from reality, abandons them to sink or swim when they tear a ligament and can't generate any revenue for the institution. On the other hand, those on the academic side will likely not enjoy Yost's even-handed analysis: he points out that a lot of the revenue from successful and profitable athletic teams actually helps subsidize academic programs and that so far, there is little proof that athletic donations are cannibalizing those to academic chairs and other programs.
This is an intriguing look behind the scenes at some of the top coaches, the top donors, the administrators and the boosters. Throughout it all, Yost makes clear his sympathy for those he sees as the biggest victims of what may be a gigantic hoax perpetrated by colleges in their own interest, at the expense of the 'student-athletes': that the latter are playing for the love of the game and the institution, even as the college profits from their labor.
I read this toward the beginning of the March Madness of 2010; I'll find it hard to look at that or any other collegiate sports program the same way again. Well-balanced, and well-researched, this is a great book to read for any sports fan, or even for someone curious about the extent to which elite athletes have become celebrities and what that means for our society. Yes, it's published by an academic press, but this is immensely readable, and highly recommended.Varsity Green: A Behind the Scenes Look at Culture and Corruption in College Athletics Overview

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