Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football |
Buy Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football here, one of 750 Football History books offered for sale at discount prices here in the history books section at R bookshop. There are currently 88519 history books in our history books section, and over 1,000,000 books listed in our book store. We greatly appreciate your patronage at R bookshop and look forward to offering you a large selection of great books at discount prices now and in the future. Thank you for shopping at R Bookshop!
|
You Are Here: Home > History Books > Football History > Item 201
|
Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football
|
by Murray A. Sperber
Sales Rank: 665230
|
List Price: $24.95
$22.45
At Amazon
on 11-25-2008.
|
|
|
|
Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 664 pages
Published by: Indiana University Press September 2002
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0253215684
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0253215680
Book Dimensions:
9 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
Weighs: 2 pounds
From Library Journal
Sperber (English, Indiana Univ.) chronicles Notre Dame and its football dynasty, from the institution's early days as a small school founded by French priests to the hiring of coach Frank Leahy in 1941. He covers not only the university's football program but the anti-Catholicism and the academic/athletic issues of the period. For the most part, however, he focuses on one man and his awesome influence upon American sports: Knute Rockne. Sperber skillfully compiled this work by poring through previously uncataloged archival papers, which included Rockne's personal correspondence. Other vibrant personalities, such as Father John O'Hara and Grantland Rice, are also examined, as are the discrepancies between reality and myth in such campus legends as the "win one for the Gipper" speech and the Notre Dame victory march. This volume is destined to become a sports classic. For most collections.
- Albert Spencer, Coll. of Education, Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
The Notre Dame football program has long been the flagship of major-college athletics. Its squeaky-clean image, however, has been tarnishing quickly of late, thanks mostly to Yeager and Looney's controversial expos{‚}e, Under the Golden Dome (see "The Manley Arts," BKL O 1 93). Current Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz takes a pounding in that book; here it's the legendary Knute Rockne, of "Win one for the Gipper" fame, who comes under the microscope. Sperber, author of College Sports, Inc. (1990), parlayed access to extensive, previously unexamined Notre Dame sports archives into an incisive portrait of Rockne and the mostly fictional legend that has grown around him. Rockne was not a saint; nor was he a devil. He was a wildly successful coach in the 1920s who virtually created the image of Notre Dame football. He was also self-promoting, ambitious, manipulative, and always willing to circumvent the rules. There was no NCAA to police college sports then, but the Carnegie Foundation--which kept an eye on sports but had no enforcement status--continually reported transgressions at the Golden Dome regarding recruiting, payments to athletes, and class attendance. Sperber reports a self-perpetuating cycle; as Rockne's reputation grew, the administration's ability to control him shrank. Sperber also provides a context for Rockne's years with profiles of the program both before and after his regime. This is an extraordinarily researched cultural history that provides a basis on which readers can build a deeper understanding of the current sad state of collegiate sports in general and Notre Dame football, at least as Yeager and Looney tell it, in particular. Wes Lukowsky
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
SHAKE DOWN THE THUNDER is a scholarly look at a sports phenomenon - the creation and early development of football at Notre Dame to 1941 and the hiring of Frank Leahy as coach. Much of the book is devoted to the politics within the university community among the coaches, administrators and influential alumni. It is also a story about the rise of Notre Dame football during a period when Catholics were striving for more influence politically and more acceptance in general in the United States. The author makes much use of the private correspondence of Knute Rockne and paints a very unromantic picture of the great coach and some of his star players. Based on this book Lee Marvin or Robert Mitchum instead of Ronald Reagan are the best choices to play the part of George Gipp in a movie. SHAKE DOWN THE THUNDER is more of a cultural history than a football story. It contains very little football action. The book is well-researched and shows how both the urge to overemphasize college football and the resulting forces trying to contain it have been in existence for a long time.
Back To Top
|
Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football
Available from Amazon
Price: $22.45
Updated on 11-25-2008.
|
NOTICE: All prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
| We offer Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football and other related Football History Books here at Rbookshop.com. To view more books about Football History please use the previous and next buttons near the top of this page.
|
|
Search for books at
