Ocean State Libraries

Traces the history of this American sport from the first college game at Rutgers in 1869 to the present.

Using some of the most prominent voices in pro sports and cultural and media criticism, How Football Explains America is a fascinating, first-of-its-kind journey through the making of America's most complex, intriguing, and popular game. It tackles varying American themes-from Manifest Destiny to "fourth and one"-as it answers the age-old question, "Why does America love football so much?" An unabashedly celebratory explanation of America's love affair...

Professional football in the last half century has been a sport marked by relentless innovation. For fans determined to keep up with the changes that have transformed the game, close examination of the coaching footage is a must. In The Games That Changed the Game, Ron Jaworski—pro football’s #1 game-tape guru—breaks down the film from seven of the most momentous contests of the last fifty years, giving

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Describes the origins and basic statistics of the four teams--the Buffalo Bills, the Miami Dolphins, the New England Patriots, and the New York Jets--which make up the National Football League's AFC East grouping. Draw football fans away from the screen and onto the page, and keep the game alive during the off-season by providing in-depth histories of the eight NFL divisions and their teams. An engaging resource for reluctant readers, these books...

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 year 1966 marked the birth of the National Football League as we know it, when owners in the NFL and the upstart American Football League agreed to an unprecedented merger, to take place at the start of the 1970 season. They also agreed to play, beginning at the end of the '66 season, a game between each league's champion-a game that came to be called The Super Bowl. The Birth of the New NFL tells the story of that historic season, leading to...