From Red Ink to Roses: The Turbulent Transformation of a Big Ten Program

by Rick Telander

A chronicle of idealism vs. practical reality in college athletics reveals the high-risk, high-pressure decisions that led to the athletic turnaround at the University of Wisconsin--and the effects on the lives of the students involved. 20,000 first printing.

Genres: Sports, Basketball, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1994

About the author

Happy to be an author. Happier to have readers! Let me know if you'd like me to talk about anything from my books. I think I remember most of them. (joke)
I went to Richwoods High School in Peoria, got a football scholarship to Northwestern University, and started writing for money (mere pittance) after graduation in 1971.
If you need to know more, let me know. I can go on and on. PS-- I once scored 108 points in a men's league game in Bridgeport, Chicago. Six-foot and under league (I'm, a little over 6-1), four-on-four, gym (McGuane Park) so tiny you had to put your foot against the wall to take the ball out. Henry's Bait Shop (us) vs. Seemo's Schnozzles (all short and mostly drunk). Scorer ran out of room in book. FYI.

Reviews

[Eric Mayes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Doesn’t do a very good job of telling the story of Wisconsin athletics rising to the top of the Big Ten. Even with the culmination of the Badgers finally winning the Rose Bowl. It’s more like a collegiate soap opera. What does the love life, or lack of a love life, of a student newspaper journalist have to do with the rebuilding of an athletic program?

[Jay Hyvare · Rating 3 out of 5]

Misleading Title.
Doesn’t dig deep enough into the “HOW” of the Football program that turned everything around for the Athletic Dept.
Somehow the school’s part-time Sports Psychologist was a more prominent character in the book that Alvarez or Shalala.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pretty great example of a piece of useful reportage that, when packaged in book format, 1) sold poorly, 2) made little impact, and 3) quickly found its way out of print. Instead of wasting time with silly, Feinstein-esque game recaps, former Northwestern University cornerback and Chicago Sun-Times columnist Telander takes readers inside the heart of a B1G program at the beginning of the second wave of revenue growth and expansion in college athletics. The book consists of a series of accounts of the lives of various student-athletes (fencer Jim Frueh, troubled distance runner Stephanie Herbst, quarterback Tony Lowery, et al.) and administrators (football coach Barry Alvarez, living legend/athletic director Pat Richter, budget-conscious hatchet man Al Fish, chancellor Donna Shalala), interwoven in a way that enables readers to see the various fault lines and discontinuities between the university's mission (cost-effective education for the common man) and the athletic department's objectives (getting out of the red, going "big-time" in football and basketball, monetizing every aspect of "the program"). Given the title, I would've liked it if Telander had attached a longer epilogue--Wisconsin's trip to the NCAA Tournament and the Rose Bowl is covered in a handful of pages.

[David Pincus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really interesting, all inclusive look at what goes on in the athletic department of a major university. A bit dated, but still very interesting and informative

[Jim Lyke · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Badger fan, this was a fascinating look at the behind-the-scenes decisions that led to the dramatic turnaround of the UW athletic department. But it goes far beyond that, looking into the lives of individual athletes including the sad and frightening story of female runners battling eating disorders.