Football and American Culture

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Football and American Culture
Started by fgoodwin, Aug 25 2014 04:02 PM

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24 replies to this topic

#1 fgoodwin
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Posted 25 August 2014 - 04:02 PM
I just saw this in my Facebook newsfeed:

Peter Golenbock

On Wednesday evening I will be teaching a new course at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. It's title: Football and American Culture. The course will feature the history of both college and professional football, beginning with the invention of the game of football by Yale University's own Walter Camp. When Princeton played Rutgers in 1869, they played a combination of rugby and soccer. Walter changed all that. He's the man who made the rules we use today. Without him we would not have the forward pass or even the scrimmage line. So a wah hoo wah to Walter, as the football season (and my class) begins.

#2 Mark L. Ford
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Posted 25 August 2014 - 04:05 PM
It would be great to be paid to teach students football history-- and for that matter, it would have been great to have had that as a class back in college...

#3 BD Sullivan
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Posted 25 August 2014 - 04:14 PM
Given his poorly edited books, I imagine he won't take off for spelling errors.

#4 fgoodwin
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Posted 25 August 2014 - 07:38 PM
BD Sullivan, on 25 Aug 2014 - 4:14 PM, said:
Given his poorly edited books, I imagine he won't take off for spelling errors.

No kidding. I wrote an Amazon review of "Cowboys Have Always Been My Heroes" and sloppy editing of basic facts was one of my biggest complaints. I think he spelled a state senator's name Oscar Mozy. The name is actually spelled "Mauzy" (I assume he was writing from a tape recording and spelled the name phonetically).

How hard would it have been for the editors to check the name of a state senator? The book was written in the late 90s, so while the web wasn't the ubiquitous resource that it is now, the telephone was still available. They could have called any reference library in the state to confirm it.

#5 lastcat3
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Posted 25 August 2014 - 08:40 PM
Hey just take that class and this one
http://www.huffingto..._n_3862601.html
And you won't have any problem doing your homework at night.

#6 Tod Maher
PFRA Member
Posted 25 August 2014 - 09:05 PM
It would be great to be paid to teach students football history-- and for that matter, it would have been great to have had that as a class back in college...

#7 oldecapecod 11
PFRA Member
Posted 25 August 2014 - 09:10 PM
fgoodwin
Posted Today, 07:38 PM
"... I think he spelled a state senator's name Oscar Mozy. The name is actually spelled "Mauzy" (I assume he was writing from a tape recording and spelled the name phonetically)..."

It might not have been smart if he spelled Wolff as Wolf or Wolfe. Ouch!!!!

#8 Reaser
PFRA Member
Posted 25 August 2014 - 09:29 PM
In middle school we had a class called "American Pastime" that was obviously about baseball. The class consisted of two things: watching Ken Burns "Baseball" and playing fantasy baseball. We were only allowed to take the class once and I had taken it in 7th grade, but since I won our league I argued that I should get to defend my championship (and I really didn't want to take some bogus music class) ... and that worked out for me, so I got to take the class in 8th grade also and re-watch "Baseball" again and my friend and I (we had 'partners') won the fantasy league again.

Long story short, I complained all the time that there should be a football class instead baseball.

#9 Rupert Patrick
PFRA Member
Posted 25 August 2014 - 09:56 PM
Reaser, on 25 Aug 2014 - 9:29 PM, said:
In middle school we had a class called "American Pastime" that was obviously about baseball. The class consisted of two things: watching Ken Burns "Baseball" and playing fantasy baseball. We were only allowed to take the class once and I had taken it in 7th grade, but since I won our league I argued that I should get to defend my championship (and I really didn't want to take some bogus music class) ... and that worked out for me, so I got to take the class in 8th grade also and re-watch "Baseball" again and my friend and I (we had 'partners') won the fantasy league again.

Long story short, I complained all the time that there should be a football class instead baseball.

It reminds me of when I was in high school and took an Astronomy class just so I could watch every episode of the original Cosmos on a large screen TV as part of the class.

#10 SixtiesFan
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Posted 26 August 2014 - 12:33 AM
Seems to be a "Gut Course."

#11 nicefellow31
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Posted 26 August 2014 - 09:02 AM
At University of Maryland, I took a class called "Theory of Coaching Football." It was taught by one of the assistant coaches. I was excited about it but boy what a boring class. We spent a lot of time discussing how to set up your practice schedule, proper conditioning drills, and stretching techniques. I went into the class thinking we'd look at game films, but nope, we watched practice tape instead. The big project was putting together a scouting report on an opponent. We picked the University of North Carolina and again more boredom. We had to go off a game I taped and I used what I learned in high school about replaying plays over and over again. My classmates had no desire do that. It took us almost two weeks but we pulled it off. That class convinced me that I did not want to coach and I got into officiating a few years later.

#12 JohnH19
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Posted 27 August 2014 - 10:35 AM
BD Sullivan, on 25 Aug 2014 - 4:14 PM, said:
Given his poorly edited books, I imagine he won't take off for spelling errors.

I read a couple of Golenbock's books years ago. I won't be reading any more of them.

#13 fgoodwin
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Posted 27 August 2014 - 03:15 PM
JohnH19, on 27 Aug 2014 - 10:35 AM, said:

I read a couple of Golenbock's books years ago. I won't be reading any more of them.

You should post reviews on Amazon. You would be doing your fellow sports fans a favor.

#14 Nwebster
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Posted 28 August 2014 - 03:18 PM
In college I took a course called "Theory and Techniques of Defensive Football", funny I was actually surprised when I showed up the first day and I was the only guy in the room not on the football team.. Great class. Taught me lots as a youngster that you probably only get from playing or coaching. Always wondered how Safeties read run/pass, then I learned high hat/low hat, so obvious.

#15 BD Sullivan
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Posted 28 August 2014 - 04:56 PM
NWebster, on 28 Aug 2014 - 3:18 PM, said:
In college I took a course called "Theory and Techniques of Defensive Football", funny I was actually surprised when I showed up the first day and I was the only guy in the room not on the football team.
You mean, the "student-athletes" weren't all majoring in nuclear physics, like those lame NCAA ads would have us believe?

#16 oldecapecod 11
PFRA Member
Posted 28 August 2014 - 06:04 PM
Please play attention.
That was a defense-themed class.
Most of the Physics classes were already filled with offensive players.

#17 Moran
PFRA Member
Posted 28 August 2014 - 07:13 PM
"Without him (Camp) we would not have the forward pass or even the scrimmage line."

#18 Superbowlfanatic
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Posted 28 August 2014 - 08:14 PM
In college, I did a research paper on Walter Camp. I lived near New Haven, and went through his papers in the Yale archives. I found a letter Camp received from a gym teacher at Notre Dame, who asked what the rules of football were, because he wanted to start a team there.
His gravesite is in the historic Grove Street Cemetery, and it's noted there that he was the "Father of American Football".
I visited the location of his first home/where he was born, and ironically, the house was a sports trophy shop.

#19 luckyshow
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Posted 28 August 2014 - 08:18 PM
Camp may be the one who allowed (if not thought of) centering the point after, making it far easier. I am not sure. In the New York Times he was against the rule change, but in his syndicated column, he favored it. So I am not sure he had more power or less when he became a living landmark.

The Penn coach had innovated a lot. The onside kick, for instance.

Who is credited with the forward pass, or was it by committee over time? They were sometimes kicking it as if a pass for a time.

Is it known why the field was shortened and an end zone added?
Wasn't Camp influential in limiting then eliminating mass and momentum plays (such as the most famous, the flying wedge). Momentum plays were where the runner would begin going forward before the snap (and the blockers in the backfield) Mass plays were where they might link hands together or/and form protective pockets to run behind.

When was the hidden ball trick banned?

#20 JWL
PFRA Member
Posted 28 August 2014 - 11:46 PM
JohnH19, on 27 Aug 2014 - 10:35 AM, said:
I read a couple of Golenbock's books years ago. I won't be reading any more of them.

I bought a book he did on the Mets. There were a dozen or so factual errors in the first chapter. I had to discard the book. When I read the passage about how some 19th century team was connected to the Mets (who began play in 1962), that is when it was determined that the book would go bye bye.

NWebster, on 28 Aug 2014 - 3:18 PM, said:
In college I took a course called "Theory and Techniques of Defensive Football", funny I was actually surprised when I showed up the first day and I was the only guy in the room not on the football team.. Great class. Taught me lots as a youngster that you probably only get from playing or coaching. Always wondered how Safeties read run/pass, then I learned high hat/low hat, so obvious.

Seton Hall University offered a Sabermetrics class but I had no interest in it. For my Sport Management classes, I wrote papers on why NFL Europe was good and I compared the NFL and NBA CBAs. I actually printed out the entire NFL one. That was done on a Saturday when the computer lab was less populated.

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oldecapecod 11

Football and American Culture
Started by fgoodwin, Aug 25 2014 04:02 PM

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24 replies to this topic

#21 oldecapecod 11
PFRA Member
Posted 29 August 2014 - 08:54 AM
If this guy is so bad, I guess someone who wanted to do so could write a book about the alleged errors?
Anyway, grabbed this list from various sites on the internet.
Keep in mind the guy is a former personal injury lawyer (known in some circles as "ambulance chasers.")

Books By Peter Golenbock
Idiot : Beating "The Curse" and Enjoying the Game of Life
Red Sox Nation: An Unexpurgated History Of The Red Sox (2005 see below)
Nascar Confidential: Stories of the Men and Women Who Made Stock Car Racing Great
Thunder And Lightning: A No B.S. Hockey Memoir (2004 with Phil Esposito - wild autobiography, made the best seller list in Canada)
Dynasty: The New York Yankees 1949-1964
The Bronx Zoo (with pitcher Sparky Lyle)
Number 1 (with manager Billy Martin)
Guidry (with Ron Guidry)
Balls (with third baseman Graig Nettles)
Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers (won 1984 CASEY Award for the best baseball book of the year)
Bats (with Davey Johnson)
Pete Rose on Hitting: How to Hit Better Than Anybody
Personal Fouls - The Broken Promises and Shattered Dreams of Big Money Basketball at Jim Valvano's North Carolina State (revisited 1980s college basketball and focused on Jim Valvano and the NC State University basketball team. Valvano did all he could to stop publication of the book, threatening to sue Simon and Schuster and Golenbock for $250 million. S&S dropped it, and it was picked up by small publisher Carroll and Graf. Within a week of publication the school chancellor Bruce Poulson retired, and Valvano later was fired first as athletic director and as basketball coach. The book prompted an NCAA investigation which whitewashed Valvano, but found that free tickets and shoes properly issued to players, were then sold for monetary gain by those players. Personal Fouls revealed that in eight years only one of Valvano's players had graduated. The publication helped spark a revolution in college athletics with educators and administrators passing rules to try to insure that college athletes leave school with an education and not just a pile of press clippings.)
The Forever Boys
Fenway: The Players and the Fans Remember (1991 - a sprawling, indepth colorful history of the Boston Red Sox. It was published by G.P. Putnam Sons and hit number 3 on the non-fiction best-seller list of the Boston Globe.)
Fenway: An Unexpurgated History of the Boston Red Sox (1992 - updated and re-released in 2005 as Red Sox Nation)
American Zoom: From Dirt Tracks to Daytona
Wild, High & Tight: The Life and Death of Billy Martin (1994 - Said Larry King in his column in U.S.A. Today, "it is one of the best biographies I have ever read." Robert Lipsyte in the New York Times said, "it is the first nonfiction baseball book that reads like a Russian novel." He added, "Wild, High, and tight is essential reading for anyone intersted in the Yankees, baseball and the darker sides of manhood in America."
Teammates
Wrigleyville (oral history of the Chicago Cubs published by St. Martin's Press. Wrigleyville featured interviewed with dozens of former Cubs, going all the way back to the late Woody English, who was the captain of the team in 1927.)
Cowboys Have Always Been My Heroes: The Definitive Oral History of America's Team (included more than a hundred hours of interviews with men who played under legendary coach Tom Landry. Among those interviewed were Roger Staubach, Bob Lilly, Calvin Hill, Thomas Henderson, Pete Gent, Duane Thomas, Drew Pearson, and Landry himself.)
The Hitters' Bible (with Bernardo Leonard)
The Stock Car Racing Encyclopedia (with Greg Fielden)
The Last Lap (a look at the men who lost their lives on the NASCAR race circuit.)
No Fear (with Ernie Irvan)
The Spirit of St. Louis: A History of the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns

There are more but this should be enough to get someone started.

Meanwhile, click on the link provided in the OP. What is humorous is the look on the guy's face (to the right of the author / to the left as you view the photo) who seems disturbed that his image will be included in a publicity shot. (Hmmm, maybe that is not... awww forget it.)

#22 Moran
PFRA Member
Posted 29 August 2014 - 06:30 PM
I've read a number of different accounts of how ideas like the line of scrimmage and the forward pass became a part of football - being the chairman of a committee that approves a rule change does not make a person the owner of the innovation. Interesting article on the Smithsonian website about the forward pass. http://www.smithsoni...-pass-78015237/ It says

The idea of throwing an overhand spiral was relatively new, credited to two men, Howard R. “Bosey” Reiter of Wesleyan University, who said he learned it in 1903 when he coached the semipro Philadelphia Athletics, and Eddie Cochems, the coach at St. Louis University.

#23 BD Sullivan
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Posted 29 August 2014 - 07:09 PM
From a long-ago discussion:
http://www.pfraforum...

#24 Jeffrey Miller
PFRA Member
Posted 29 August 2014 - 07:58 PM
I have it as early as 1895 ... and it probably goes earlier than that

#25 Superbowlfanatic
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Posted 02 September 2014 - 07:14 PM
The 1:27 mark of this video shows the Walter Camp Gravesite at the Historic Grove Street Cemetery at Yale.
https://www.together...

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