The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football details an important time in football history.
Miller describes how Theodore Roosevelt grew up as a sickly child, but one who would do anything to overcome his ailments. Thus, he became a solid athlete and sports enthusiast, though he never really played football.
At Harvard, Teddy was a fan of the game, which looked quite a bit different than it does today. The sport resembled a more violent version of rugby. No equipment was worn, and the ball only moved forward in kicks. As the sport grew in popularity, so did the number of injuries and deaths of its players. This caused great concern among many people. One such person was Harvard president Charles Eliot, who wanted to outright ban football. He was not alone. Many schools banned the sport.
If you read The Big Scrum, you'll find out how Teddy was able to gain support for football and eventually help transition it into the game it is today.
2 comments:
Might be why Theodore Roosevelt is one of my favorite U.S.Presidents!
"Go Bears"
re: book review request by award-winning author
Dear Sarah,
I'm an award-winning author with a new book out this fall. Ugly To Start With is a series of thirteen interrelated stories about childhood being published by West Virginia University Press.
Can I interest you in reviewing it?
If you write me back at johnmcummings@aol.com, I can email you a PDF of my book. If you require a bound copy, please ask, and I will forward your reply to my publisher. Or you can write directly to Abby Freeland at:
Abby.Freeland@mail.wvu.edu
My publisher, I should add, can also offer your readers a free excerpt of my book through a link from your blog to my publisher's website:
http://wvupressonline.com/cummings_ugly_to_start_with_9781935978084
Here’s what Jacob Appel, celebrated author of
Dyads and The Vermin Episode, says about my new collection: "In Ugly to Start With, set in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, Cummings tackles the challenges of boyhood adventure and family conflict in a taut, crystalline style that captures the triumphs and tribulations of small-town life. He has a gift for transcending the particular experiences to his characters to capture the universal truths of human affection and suffering--emotional truths that the members of his audience will recognize from their own experiences of childhood and adolescence.”
My short stories have appeared in more than seventy-five literary journals, including North American Review, The Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Chattahoochee Review. Twice I have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. My short story "The Scratchboard Project" received an honorable mention in The Best American Short Stories 2007.
I am also the author of the nationally acclaimed coming-of-age novel The Night I Freed John Brown (Philomel Books, Penguin Group, 2009), winner of The Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers (Grades 7-12) and one of ten books recommended by USA TODAY.
For more information about me, please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_Cummings
Thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Kindly,
John Michael Cummings
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