Reading Football

How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle

Nonfiction, Sports, History, Football
Cover of the book Reading Football by Michael Oriard, The University of North Carolina Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Michael Oriard ISBN: 9780807866962
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Publication: November 9, 2000
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press Language: English
Author: Michael Oriard
ISBN: 9780807866962
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication: November 9, 2000
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Language: English

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, a former professional player, asks these and other intriguing questions in Reading Football, the first contemporary book about football's formative years.

American football began in the 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, a phenomenon caused primarily by the voluminous commentary about the game conducted in popular newspapers and magazines.

Oriard shows how this constant narrative in football's early years developed many different stories about what the game meant: football as pastime, as the sport of gentlemen, as a science, as a game of rules and their infringements. He shows how football became a series of cultural stories about power, luck, strategy, and deception. These different interpretations have been magnified by football's current omnipresence on television. According to Oriard, televised football now plays a cultural role of enormous importance for men, yet within the field of cultural studies the influence of football has been ignored until now.

From the book:
"A receiver sprints down the sideline, fast and graceful, then breaks toward the middle of the field where a safety waits for him. From forty yards upfield the quarterback releases the ball; it spirals in an elegant arc toward the goalposts as the receiver now for the first time looks back to pick up its flight. The pass is a little high; the receiver leaps, stretches, grasps the ball--barely, fingers clutching--at the very moment that the safety drives a helmet into his unprotected ribs. The force of the collision flings the receiver backward, slamming him to the turf. . . . This familiar tableau, this exemplary moment in a football game, epitomizes the appeal of the sport: the dramatic confrontation of artistry with violence, both equally necessary."

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

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, a former professional player, asks these and other intriguing questions in Reading Football, the first contemporary book about football's formative years.

American football began in the 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, a phenomenon caused primarily by the voluminous commentary about the game conducted in popular newspapers and magazines.

Oriard shows how this constant narrative in football's early years developed many different stories about what the game meant: football as pastime, as the sport of gentlemen, as a science, as a game of rules and their infringements. He shows how football became a series of cultural stories about power, luck, strategy, and deception. These different interpretations have been magnified by football's current omnipresence on television. According to Oriard, televised football now plays a cultural role of enormous importance for men, yet within the field of cultural studies the influence of football has been ignored until now.

From the book:
"A receiver sprints down the sideline, fast and graceful, then breaks toward the middle of the field where a safety waits for him. From forty yards upfield the quarterback releases the ball; it spirals in an elegant arc toward the goalposts as the receiver now for the first time looks back to pick up its flight. The pass is a little high; the receiver leaps, stretches, grasps the ball--barely, fingers clutching--at the very moment that the safety drives a helmet into his unprotected ribs. The force of the collision flings the receiver backward, slamming him to the turf. . . . This familiar tableau, this exemplary moment in a football game, epitomizes the appeal of the sport: the dramatic confrontation of artistry with violence, both equally necessary."

More books from The University of North Carolina Press

Cover of the book To Lead the Free World by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Carolina Israelite by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Law and Society in Puritan Massachusetts by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Cheddi Jagan and the Politics of Power by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Frances Willard by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Haya de la Torre and the Pursuit of Power in Twentieth-Century Peru and Latin America by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Writing Reconstruction by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Brand NFL by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book The Counterrevolution of Slavery by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Modernizing a Slave Economy by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Intimations of Modernity by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Beyond Regulations by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Pursuit of Unity by Michael Oriard
Cover of the book Prelude to Nuremberg by Michael Oriard
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy