Thursday, July 9, 2009

Book Review: "War As They Knew It"

In order to bridge the gap between the end of another riveting College World Series (did they have that this year? Is that the one in Williamsport with all the pedophiles in the stands?) and the start of FOOTBALL season (note: caps used to convey excitement and manly grunts), we here at Office Tailgate are trying a couple of new things to fill all this down time. One of them is a review of college sports-related books and to let you know whether they are worth your time and hard earned dollars. I’ll start off with a review of War As They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time of Unrest by Michael Rosenberg.

This is a great book and a must read for all Big 10 fans out there (and by a quick show of hands, when I include myself that makes . . . carry the 1 . . . 2 of us). The book follows two simple themes. First, it is a story of two dominant personalities that were as contrasting as they were similar: legendary Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes and legendary Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler. It follows how Bo was initially supposed to take over for Woody at Ohio State, but spurred Woody to take the Michigan job and reawaken the Wolverines into one of the most dominant teams in college football history. It also marks how these two men started as friends, later became heated rivals as they rebuilt the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry and transformed it into national theatre as the “10 Year War,” and then became friends again after Woody’s retirement.

Simultaneously, it is also the story of a country in the middle of a profound cultural shift in attitudes and behavior. The book opens and constantly refers back to the campus unrest of the late 60s and how it visibly affected politically active Ann Arbor, but also changed the more conservative Columbus as well. The schools and the student body shifted in terms of race, drug use, recruiting strategies, and view of their coaches as the World War II vets of the “Greatest Generation” faded away and were replaced by the more self-absorbed and entitled “Baby Boom Generation.” The irony of the story here is that while Woody Hayes was much more well read and was dealing with a more conservative campus than Schembechler, Woody was unable to adjust his style to the times which ultimately led to his embarrassing and public firing as football coach in 1979.

The book is great because it shows the origins of many phenomena that we enjoy and hate today. First of all, the book shows just why coaches today are so much younger and “player friendly” than coaches in the past. We think coaches like Nick Saban are tough, but read this passage: “Hayes turned and rammed through the first two rows of players [during a halftime speech], then attacked with such force than [fullback Jim] Otis’s Coke popped up in the air. As he pounded away, Hayes screamed that Otis would never play for Ohio State again.” Are you effing kidding me? He punched a kid in the face repeatedly! Umm, yeah, think you’d get arrested if you knew that not only your coach would literally beat the shit out of you during a game, but that your teammates would also support the coach during the fight? That would never happen today, and Rosenberg makes a compelling argument that it is because of the generational change of the 1960s. The new generation of players became “me first,” so new coaches had to emerge that would shelter, coddle, and feed the egos of this new generation of players.

The second thing Rosenberg points out is that certain bowl debates are not new. First, of all, he makes pretty clear that the Big 10 has always sucked in bowl games. None of the other major powers have to play in such terrible weather for such a long portion of their season, so the Big 10 has always had a style of play that was designed to win the Big 10 first, anything else second. When you read Rosenberg’s book, if you substitute “power I” for “wishbone” and “Spread” for “West Coast Offense,” you’d think you were reading about the 2009 bowl season. It makes clear that it isn’t that some teams are faster than others, rather the problem with the Big 10 is that the cold weather forces teams to develop a style of play that is slower because of the cold and snow. Rosenberg did not make any links between the Midwest’s traditional isolationist stance in American politics and their lack of concern of bowl performance, although he may as well have.

We can also see the origins of the BCS in this book. The book charts how Michigan AD Don Canham single-handedly transformed college sports in the 1970s. Before Canham, most college football teams broke even financially, only one game was played on national tv per week, and a team could only appear on national tv once per regular season. Under Canham, however, Michigan athletics transformed into a financial giant by expanding not just the stadium, but introducing branding of team apparel and granting TV crews unparalleled access to teams to maximize exposure. His vision made him the most important and influential person in college sports, and when he argued that the bowl season would make more money than a playoff in the 1970s, that ended the playoff argument for 20 years. It’s a great way to put our current BCS debate in historical perspective, as well as shed light as to why the BCS supervisor said this week that if the BCS goes, there will be no playoff, just a return to the old bowl system. It’s all about the Benjamins.

Like I said, great book. If you like history and football, it’s a quick read that you will not put down until it’s done.

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