You Dropped It, You Pick It Up!

by Jim Paul

The hilarious account of the worst tail-thumping in the history of college football. (Georgia Tech vs. Cumberland University, October 7, 1916. The score you won't believe!)

Genres: Sports

222 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[AndrewMillerTheSecond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would I be reading this if it was actually in circulation and hadn’t been used in a Jon Bois video? No. The book is probably best described as a work of historical fiction: it’s true that Georgia Tech (specifically John Heisman) forced Cumberland to play a football game in 1916, and George Allen was forced to scrounge together a team compromised mostly of law school students, and the result was a historical beatdown. The rest of it is a work of creative writing, and it’s good—but Jim Paul tries to pass it off as stuff that actually happened. (In the intro Paul says the book is based on “facts, rumors and assumptions”.)Primary sources are thin as is made clear by the small number of footnotes. I think Paul was angling for this to be made into a movie, given he wrote a screenplay as well as the fact that the book is brimming with dialogue that is clearly fabricated. Bois exercised a good amount of restraint in what he included and didn’t include, but a bigger disclaimer was necessary. I read “Heisman’s First Trophy” by Sam Hatcher a while back which covers the 222-0 game; it’s much less sensationalist, but is also lacking sources and contains many bits of questionable game info just based on my skimming thru the book again. This book is funny, and I’m glad it’s available for anyone to read now… if a movie is ever made based on this novel it will be lucky that the phrase “based on a true story” exists to cover up any exaggerations.

[Kyle Sherry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book rules. I have no idea how much of it is true and how much of it is artistic suggestion, but you can tell there’s a lot of love for this deeply weird story that came through in the writing. Currently trying to write a screenplay based on the game, and this has been a huge help.

[Alex DeJong · Rating 5 out of 5]

George Allen’s antics and schemes leading up to the historic shellacking of his football team makes for a fun read and look into the culture of 1910s college and the south.

It has the feeling of something like an anti-sports book or movie. Where most fiction books would have a cast of lovable underdogs overcome their opponents through sheer grit or cleverness this book tells the tale of the true story of when a series of schemes collapses and the group of underdogs have to face the music and play against the vastly superior opponent who will not for a moment let up.

[Alex McCaffity · Rating 4 out of 5]

yeah that's what happens when you make a lawyer play a sport