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| How Football Explains America | 
 enlarge | Author: Sal Paolantonio
Publisher: Triumph Books (IL)
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $16.47
You Save: $8.48 (34%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (7 reviews)
Sales Rank: 313
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 211
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 1
ISBN: 1600780466
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.332
EAN: 9781600780462
ASIN: 1600780466
Publication Date: September 10, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 7 to 13 days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Here at last is the first book to fully explain how and why the game of football became America's most powerful and financially successful entertainment phenomenon--and how this country's pioneers of sports, games, industry, and politics helped transform a sleepy game inherited from Europe into one that would explain what America wanted to become and who we are as a people. In How Football Explains America, Sal Paolantonio, ESPN football reporter and a former national political reporter, takes you all the way back to 1876, when the United States was celebrating its 100th birthday, and explains how and why the stodgy and low-scoring games of soccer and rugby were rejected for a game that reflected America's lust to control--Manifest Destiny!--an entire continent. How Football Explains America takes you through how and why President Teddy Roosevelt saved football, how and why Jim Thorpe and Bill Walsh changed the game, and how and why it was influenced by Hollywood and West Point. How Football Explains America explains how football was influenced by Davy Crockett, John Coltrane, Jackie Robinson, and Douglas MacArthur. How Football Explains America shows how at the heart of this country's real pastime is an insatiable need for storytelling and mythmaking, how Johnny Unitas is like John Wayne and Joe Montana is like Luke Skywalker, how the game grew up when pioneers and cowboys set out to write America's story across the West, and how football was a game that perfectly explained that march across the continent. "Football explains America," says NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, "because the game is about teamwork and camaraderie, competition and passion, strategy and energy, strength and emotion. You can look at football and see the heart of America." How Football Explains America takes you through a fascinating historical and cultural journey, using the intrigue, skullduggery, and drama of the 2007 NFL season--the quest for perfection and triumph of an underdog against all odds--to tell the story of a game and a nation that have been sewn together and explain how we live, work, and play.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 You'll Never Watch A Football Game the Same Way Again October 6, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an entertaining and enlightening book that will change the way you think about football. You'll learn about the introduction of the quarterback position. You'll learn how the early pioneers in the game changed the rules of the rugby-soccer hybrid they inherited from Europe in order to better reflect the hardscrabble reality of the American frontier. You'll learn about the intricate connections between an American war hero, the football program at West Point, and some of the most successful coaches in football history. Most of all, you'll learn why this is a uniquely American game, and will be prompted to reflect on those values and experiences that make America unique.
The book is a fast-paced read uncommon among history books. It is entertaining and informative for football fans and non-sports fans alike. Highly recommended. For another useful review, make sure to check out: (http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/giants/2008/09/free-giants-tickets.html)
A New Classic For History Courses October 3, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
A great new book. An excellent new book. A magnificent theme.
This book should be used in history classes throughout the United States. Sal Paolantonio shows how the best qualities and leaders in the course of our country's history have impacted football -- and how the structure of football has benefitted therefrom. Teddy Roosevelt and Bill Parcels; General MacArthur and Bill Walsh; John Coltrane and Johnny Unitas -- all in one book (and rightly so).
Sal Paolantonio deserves acclaim. He crystallizes for us how shared commitment, shared sacrifice, and shared determination are the hallmarks of football, just as they have in other major episodes throughout course of U.S. history.
 Great Title ... Too Bad it's Not Original October 2, 2008
2 out of 31 found this review helpful
At least Sal Paolantonio didn't rip off the title of one of the great soccer books of recent memory. Oh, wait. What's next, Sal, Fever Pitch?
A star-spangled, testosterone-soaked tribute to America's favorite pastime September 30, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
How Football Explains America is a fast-paced highlight reel of the game's first two violent centuries. Narrator Sal Paolantonio pauses the action to explain the mental side of the game -- the pioneers, tacticians and innovators -- and what pro football derived from the military, show biz and most importantly, the American spirt.
You'll learn about the deaf quarterback who ran the first huddle, how John Wayne begat Johnny U and Eli Manning, and what Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells owe to General Douglas MacArthur. It's a star-spangled testosterone-soaked tribute to America's favorite pastime. You can't understand ancient Rome without touring the Colliseum and you won't fully understand pro football's enduring grip on the American male psyche until you read Professor Paolantonio's little gem of a book.
Answering the most important questions about America's biggest game... September 13, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
It's easy to answer any number of questions about America's (real) national pasttime: What is it about the game that so captivates people every Sunday? Why do 100 million people watch the Super Bowl each year? How did the game get so...big? But Sal Paolantonio ups the ante by searching for -- and finding -- the answer to the most meaningful and revealing question of all: Why America is the only place in history football could be. "How Football Explains America" is at once a history of our game and a reflection on our country. It's a book born out a love for the sport that millions and millions of Americans have shared. But at its heart it's a patriotic work -- a glimpse at how football has become a perfect expression of the best the United States of America has to offer.
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