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BOOK REVIEW
READING FOOTBALL: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle; by Michael Oriard;
University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1993; 282 pages.
Recently I came across the above mentioned book at our public library and was surprised to see that
it had been published in 1993, not having seen any publicity for it at the time.
Having always had a great interest in newspapers, sportswriting, and college football, I eagerly began
to read Oriard’s book with great anticipation. While it turned out to be far from what I had expected,
overall it proved to be well worth reading.
The author is a former pro football player,
having been with the Kansas City Chiefs
from 1970-1973 after graduating from Notre
Dame, who is now a professor of English at
Oregon State University, and this was his
fourth book. In “Reading Football” the author’s background in the academic world
won out over any intentions he may have
had of writing a book strictly about football
games and players, which is what I was
expecting.
The first hint that I was in for some heavy
reading at times came in a Forward written
by editor Alan Trachtenberg, which left me
nearly numb. Oriard then followed with a
Preface and 20 pages of Introduction that
just about finished me off.
While the Preface took a lot of concentration, and actually wasn’t all that bad, the
Introduction drifts off into outer dimensions
that would have been better left unwritten,
and certainly should have been left unread
As an example of the topics pursued in the
Introduction, two of the sections are titled
“Football As Cultural Text”, and “Football
and Mass Culture”.
Just as I was thinking of returning this
attractive looking book to whence it came,
the Introduction ended and the author
The evolution of football coverage in
actually started to examine the early
the NY World: top left-1880; top R-1885;
evolution
of college football. The farther I
lower left-1889; lower right-1893.
read, the more I had to keep going, despite
the fact that frequently Oriard drops in a
few sentences that sailed right past me. The overall result is an extremely significant contribution to
the writings on the early history of college football.
The author opens with a decent overview of the earliest evolvements of football, and he arrives at the
conclusion that “football thus developed as much by accident as design” The point is made that football
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was a game originally designed to be played, and not really watched by spectators. Certainly the early
builders of college football in no way anticipated the tremendous impact the sport would soon have on
the nation’s printed media.
A fairly lengthy analysis of the writings of Walter Camp is presented, and the point is made that by
the late 1880’s Camp had recognized football as “cultural text whose meaning he wished to interpret”.
Hence the beginnings of Camp’s earliest essays in Harpers Weekly and Outing magazines.
The assertion is made that Camp’s writings covered “the rationalization and tactical development of the
game’s action ... consistently interpreted the game’s meaning and significance from what is essentially
a managerial and technocratic perspective”. The author then advances his belief that Camp, with his
extensive business background, always viewed the sport of college football as really a training ground
for future leaders of industry and
commerce in America. Personal discipline and tactical strategy were seen
by Camp as essential necessities for
business management. Contrasting
viewpoints are presented in a nice
review of the writings and the career
of Caspar Whitney.
The book then continues into a review
of college football’s evolvement, shown
in parallel to the extent and methods
by which the prominent newspapers
and magazines of the time covered
the sport. The newspapers of New
York City are the primary examples
used, usually in relation to their treatment of the titanic Thanksgiving Day
games which were staged there for
several years in the late 1800’s.
Early woodcut shows late 1800’s emphasis
on the fashionable spectators, with the
game as a secondary feature.
Oriard illustrates how the game grew
in leaps and bounds, both in popularity
and the extent of its media coverage,
from very sparse attention in the
early 1880’s, until by 1895 the amount
of football coverage was “staggering”
both in quality and quantity. The
author offers the opinion that “the
daily press in New York had an impact on college football in the 1880’s
and 1890’s, greater than” television’s
contributions to the growth of professional football in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
The book also offers considerable information about the newspaper business of the late 1800’s, including
the staggering statistics that in 1880 New York City had 33 daily papers and 26 Sunday papers; while
by 1889 the number in New York alone had grown to the incredible number of 55 dailies and 32 Sunday
editions. The author credits Joseph Pulitzer at The World, along with William Randolph Hearst and
his New York Journal, as being the chief figures in the explosive growth of newspaper football
coverage in late 19th Century New York City, and ultimately most of the United States.
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While “Reading Football” includes a review of the football writings in the National Police Gazette and
the New York Clipper, the greatest attention is given to newspaper coverage. The author traces the
development of football coverage from strictly columnar-text, through the addition of small art pieces,
all the way to full-size action drawings and single game stories that often went onto a second page.
This review also shows us the narrative formula for football coverage that was eventually adopted by
newspapers across the country in their reporting of major college games impressions of the crowd and
any prominent people in attendance; the setting for the game in relation to the teams and the
significance of the game; the arrival of the teams; and the technical description of the game’s action.
If you think about it, this is the same basic formula that television uses today in its over-hyped
coverage of most major sports events.
Oriard also presents examinations of turn-of-the-century college football in relation to topics such as
women fans or coeds; the usually riotous post-game conduct of the students in restaurants, theaters etc
which eventually caused the Thanksgiving Day classics to be sent packing by New York City; various
“versions of Manliness” embodied by the game; and minorities in football, in particular the Carlisle
Indians. In covering the violence of college football in the 1890’s, the author relates how a cadre of New
York police was sent to Manhattan Field for the 1894 and 1895 Yale-Princeton games, with the specific
purpose of hauling away any players who commenced “slugging” or other wanton acts of mayhem. One
of my favorite cartoons reprinted in “Reading Football” shows the ultimate tongue-in-cheek look at
college football’s violence, as it pictures the crusty old professors from two stately schools locked in a
full-scale brawl out in the center of the field.
As you would expect in a book such as this, there is an extensive and very valuable bibliography
included which provides us leads for some further readings. There are also extensive footnotes, many
in an expanded format that present even more information.
So all in all, we give a hearty “thumbs up” to “Reading Football”, and strongly recommend it to college
football historians. Just remember to start reading at page 21.