Books for the Football Fan in Your Life

Ever since the first Yale team took the field in 1872, the Bulldogs' place in the history of college football has been well established. With 26 national championships, 13 Ivy League championships, 100 consensus all-Americans, dozens of College Football Hall of Famers, two Heisman Trophy winners, and over 800 victories, the Elis' list of accomplishments is unparalleled. Yale Football captures all the elements that make the sport so special: the epic rivalry with Harvard, the atmosphere of a packed Yale Bowl, the history that spans generations. From Walter Camp's role as the father of American football to the glory years under legendary head coach Carm Cozza and beyond, Yale's great players and achievements are portrayed through rare and captivating images.

Notre Dame and Nebraska may have their claims, but Dartmouth's football tradition is special, perhaps unrivaled. Football, above all, is an emotional game, and nowhere is that spirit more vibrant, more enduring, more a part of the collegiate experience than in Hanover, New Hampshire. Since 1881, Dartmouth has established its place in the annals of college football, rising to national-championship heights and, during the past half-century, ranking as the Ivy League's most successful program.

Dartmouth College Football: Green Fields of Autumn captures the colorful tradition of Dartmouth football. On a campus that President Dwight D. Eisenhower described as "what a college ought to look like," football is at the center of an autumn rite that has left its mark on the game. Dartmouth teams have played in stadiums across the continent, produced Hall of Fame performers, and sent players to the NFL and to the nation's CEO ranks. It is a legacy that continues with each crisp New Hampshire autumn.

Since 1875, southeastern Connecticut has played host to the oldest high school football rivalry in the nation: the Norwich Free Academy Wildcats versus the New London Whalers. This complex and competitive rivalry has inspired mayhem and merriment, from biased officials, cheating faculty and vandalism among students to disco-dancing coaches and marching band rallies. Learn how a fight during the 1951 meeting stopped the game for two years, how the Bulkeley Tigers (who became New London High School in 1951) finished their regular season in 1941 without a loss or tie and how the 1997 game ended a fourteen-game losing streak for the Norwich Free Academy. Join sportswriter Brian Girasoli as he recounts a spirit that transcends the ages and chronicles the evolution of this 135-year-old-rivalry.

The storied history of Harvard University football can be traced back to the very roots of the collegiate game in America. Harvard's athletic contest with McGill University in 1874 marked the inception of the modern game for the Crimson. The club from Cambridge then went on to become one of the dominant football programs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, winning seven national championships between 1890 and 1919, culminating with its Rose Bowl victory over Oregon in January 1920. Since 1956, the team has been a
perennial contender in the Ivy League. Images of Sports: Harvard Football captures all the drama and excitement of the pioneering football program's legacy. Included are the exploits of Charlie Brickley in the 1910s and Barry Wood in the 1930s; the school's first Ivy League title in 1961 and the 29-29 "victory" over Yale in the most famous of all one hundred eighteen riveting match-ups. The captivating images included in Harvard Football detail these accounts up to the Crimson's 2001 run to perfection, a 9-0-0 record, marking the first undefeated, untied season in eighty-eight years.