Skip to content
FREE SHIPPING ON ALL DOMESTIC ORDERS $35+
FREE SHIPPING ON ALL US ORDERS $35+
The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football - Paperback | Diverse Reads

The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football

Availability:
in stock, ready to be shipped
$18.99 - $18.99
$18.99
$19.99
$19.99 - $19.99
$19.99
John J. Miller delivers the intriguing, never-before-told story of how Theodore Roosevelt saved American Football—a game that would become the nation’s most popular sport. Miller’s sweeping, novelistic retelling captures the violent, nearly lawless days of late 19th century football and the public outcry that would have ended the great game but for a crucial Presidential intervention. Teddy Roosevelt’s championing of football led to the creation of the NCAA, the innovation of the forward pass, a vital collaboration between Walter Camp, Charles W. Eliot, John Heisman and others, and, ultimately, the creation of a new American pastime. Perfect for readers of Douglas Brinkley’s Wilderness Warrior, Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side, and Conn and Hal Iggulden’s The Dangerous Book for Boys, Miller’s The Big Scrum reclaims from the shadows of obscurity a remarkable story of one defining moment in our nation’s history.

ISBN-13: 9780061744525

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Publication Date: 04-17-2012

Pages: 272

Product Dimensions: 5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.61(d)

John J. Miller is director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College, national correspondent for National Review, a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and the author of five books, including the novel The First Assassin.

What People are Saying About This

Tweed Roosevelt

“Football enthusiassts and Theodore Roosevelt admirers will both enjoy and learn from these little-known but important historic events that preserved from extinction one of America’s favorite sports.”

Candice Millard

“In Miller’s hands, the story of Theodore Roosevelt’s love for, and defense of, ‘the great game’ has as much vigor and passion as Roosevelt himself. It’s a fascinating and thoroughly American tale.”

Table of Contents

Introduction: America's Game ix

Chapter 1 The Killing Fields 1

Chapter 2 Creation Stories 19

Chapter 3 Game Time 47

Chapter 4 Camp Days 65

Chapter 5 The Capacity to Inflict Pain 91

Chapter 6 The Virile Virtues 111

Chapter 7 Let Them Be Men First 135

Chapter 8 Rough Riding. 155

Chapter 9 Football Is a Fight 175

Chapter 10 The Air War 205

Appendix 223

Acknowledgments 225

Notes 227

Index 247