Stagg's University: The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Big-Time Football at Chicago (Sport and Society)

Lester, Robin

ISBN 10: 0252067916 / ISBN 13: 9780252067914

Published by University of Illinois Press, 1999

About this Item

A case study of college football. It looks at the birth of bigtime college sport, showing how gridiron glory and scandal were prefigured in Chicago's football industry of the early twentieth century, presided over by the brilliant, combative, saintly, but very human Amos Alonzo Stagg. Series: Sport and Society. Num Pages: 344 pages, 27 photographs. BIC Classification: 1KBB; BGS; HBJK; HBLW; WSJS. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 5817 x 3887 x 25. Weight in Grams: 562. . 1999. Illustrated. paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780252067914

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Stagg's University: The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Big-Time Football at Chicago (Sport and Society)
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252067916
• ISBN 13: 9780252067914
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

The legendary University of Chicago football program had an unusual beginning, a dazzling middle, and an inglorious conclusion. Its architect: Amos Alonzo Stagg, the most creative and entrepreneurial college coach of his time. A former all-American gridiron star at Yale, Stagg joined an elite academic institution that boasted intellectual notables like John Dewey, Thorstein Veblen, and Albert Michelson. Within fifteen years, the fame of Stagg's football program had eclipsed even Michelson's renown as the first American citizen to win a Nobel Prize. 

Robin Lester follows the commercial trail blazed by Stagg and University President William Rainey Harper and the subsequent transformation of college football into a mass entertainment industry that changed campuses and captured the national imagination. Fascinating and detailed, Stagg's Universityreveals how the University of Chicago's football industry prefigured today's billion-dollar sport juggernaut and details the life and leadership of one of its foundational personages.

About the Author

Robin Lester is a retired professor and headmaster. He taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia College, and Pepperdine University and is the author of Princes of New York.