Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle (Cultural Studies of the United States) by Michael Oriard

Cultural Studies of the United States

by Michael Oriard

Is football an athletic contest or a social event? Is it a game of skill, a test of manhood, or merely an organized brawl? Michael Oriard asks these and other intriguing questions in Reading Football, the first contemporary book-length study of football's formative years. American football began in 1870s as a game to be played, not watched. Within a brief ten years, it had become a great public spectacle with an immense following. Not coincidentally, Oriard argues, football's formative years were also the golden age of print, an era when newspapers and periodicals reached a larger and more varied audience than ever before. These publications carried vast amounts of commentary about football conducted by journalists, coaches, ministers, college presidents and faculty, and various others. The daily newspaper in particular, Oriard argues, virtually created football as a popular spectacle. Oriard shows how this constant narrative developed many different stories about what the game football as pastime, as the sport of gentlemen, as a science, as a game of rules and their infringements, as Darwinian struggle. He shows how football, in its early years, became a series of cultural stories about power, luck, strategy, and deception. These narratives, or interpretations, Oriard contends, often contradicted one they were read differently by different groups and individuals, and the various interpretations of the game changed through time. One question played out in the early years of football was Is football a game of brutality or a game that calls on the "manly" virtues of self-discipline, patience, bravery, and teamwork? Walter Camp, the Yale coach who is known as thefather of American football, wanted it to be seen as a game of discipline, obedience, pluck, and tactical genius - a mirror of corporate America. But the public cared more for "individual brilliancy, " and football was increasingly described in print as brutal and barbarous as the gam

Genres: History, Sports, Nonfiction, Football, Journalism, Cultural Studies

Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

when i interviewed oriard a few years ago, the discussion was focused on his memoir the end of autumn, which i had just read and which was very good (https://www.splicetoday.com/sports/th...). i'd also read his then-recent book on ncaa football as an economic/cultural institution...but that book was fairly matter of fact and didn't showcase how good a scholar this guy was. here, oriard ranges across nearly the whole of 19th century popular literature on football (because it was possible to assemble these texts - which won't be the case for the follow-up on the 1920s and beyond, "king football"), using the sport as a way of understanding various conflicting meanings about american culture more broadly (masculinity in flux or crisis, play vs. sport, scientific management vs. individual skill, etc.). exceptional work, including a lit review at the beginning that should serve as the model for how to write sections that are usually just tacked-on makework BS (I refused to include one in my dissertation; too boring for the reader). highly recommended.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I consider this to be the best book about football ever written. Oriard explains how football emerges due to the efforts of some very dedicated people with surprisingly articulate about what they hoped the larger social implications of their efforts would be. I've assigned this book to students, who are usually shocked by the casual and frequent assertions of white supremacy.

[Raving Redcoat · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic look at how the early press influenced the game we know today. Very readable!