When Football Went to War PDF Download

Author: Todd Anton
Publisher: Triumph Books
ISBN: 1623683092
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
More than any other sport, professional football contributed fighting men to the battles of World War II, and the 22 or so players or former players that lost their lives are among the riveting stories told in this tribute to football's war heroes that spans many decades and military conflicts. The National Football League counts three Congressional Medal of Honor recipients among its honors, along with numerous Silver Stars, Distinguished Flying Crosses, and Purple Hearts. When Football Went to War offers a ground-breaking look at football—college and professional football alike—and many of the wartime heroes who came off the field of play to fight for their country. Detailed biographies of those who gave their lives are supplemented by many other stories of wartime heroism, from World War I through to Pat Tillman's tragic death in the Global War on Terrorism. Football has become the most popular sport in America and this heartfelt book honors the many sacrifices of NFL athletes over the years in service of their country.

Author: Chris Serb
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538124858
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
During World War I, American army camps, navy stations and marine barracks formed football's first true all-star teams, competing against each other and top colleges while raising millions of dollars for the war effort. More than fifty college football hall-of-famers, dozens of future generals, and two Medal of Honor winners would play for, coach, or promote military teams during the war, including Dwight Eisenhower, Walter Camp, and George Halas. In War Football: World War I and the Birth of the NFL, Chris Serb recounts a fascinating chapter of military and sports history. He details three of the best but long-forgotten seasons of American football, when college amateurs mixed with blue-collar pros on the field of play. These games showed investors a lucrative market for teams of post-collegiate stars and made players realize that their football careers didn’t have to end after college. Soon the barriers to professionalism began to fall, and within two years of the Armistice the National Football League was born. War Football explores for the first time this lost chapter of sports history and makes a direct connection between World War I and the founding of the NFL. Seven future Hall-of-Famers led the charge of more than 200 military veterans who played in, coached for, and shaped the character of the young league. Football fans, sports historians, and military historians alike will find this book a fascinating read.

Author: Daniel Flynn
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
ISBN: 1621571556
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
We've all been hearing rumors about sacking America's beloved game of football—and it's time someone spoke out against the witch hunt. In The War on Football: Saving America's Game, Dan Flynn debunks the haters and tells us why America needs football.

Author: Ryszard Kapuscinski
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0804151105
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Part diary and part reportage, The Soccer War is a remarkable chronicle of war in the late twentieth century. Between 1958 and 1980, working primarily for the Polish Press Agency, Kapuscinski covered twenty-seven revolutions and coups in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Here, with characteristic cogency and emotional immediacy, he recounts the stories behind his official press dispatches—searing firsthand accounts of the frightening, grotesque, and comically absurd aspects of life during war. The Soccer War is a singular work of journalism.

Author: Bill McWilliams
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0811768732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
In late November 1941, two college football teams—Willamette University and San Jose State—set sail for Honolulu for a series of games with the University of Hawaii. Instead of a festive few weeks of football and fun, the players found themselves caught up in the first days of the United States’ war with Japan. For two weeks after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, the young men were recruited to dig and man trenches, string barbed wire, guard hotels, and join patrols as martial law took hold in Honolulu. They arrived home on Christmas Day after a dangerous journey back across the Pacific. Almost all of the players would go on to fight in the war. This is a different kind of war story, blending battle and gridiron—along with a strong dose of human interest, of college-aged young men unexpectedly caught up in the world war. This is a story of war and football, of Pearl Harbor and the first moments of the U.S. in World War II. It is a story of the very first days of World War II as experienced by a group of young men who witnessed it firsthand—and would soon be fighting it (indeed, who were already fighting it). This is a story of heroism, courage, self-sacrifice, and duty in the maelstrom of war.

Author: Terry Frei
Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society
ISBN: 0870205560
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
On December 11, 1941, All-American football player Dave Schreiner wrote to his parents, "I'm not going to sit here snug as a bug, playing football, when others are giving their lives for their country. ... If everyone tried to stay out of it, what a fine country we'd have!" Schreiner didn't stay out of it. Neither did his Wisconsin Badger teammates, including friend and co-captain Mark "Had" Hoskins and standouts "Crazylegs" Hirsch and Pat Harder. After that legendary 1942 season, the Badgers scattered to serve, fight, and even die around the world. This fully revised edition of the popular hardcover includes follow-up research and updates about many of the '42 Badgers, plus a new foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Maraniss. Readers and reviewers agree: Terry Frei's heart-wrenching story of Schreiner and his band of brothers is much more than one team's tale. It's an All-American story.

Author: Mark Maske
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781594201417
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
A behind-the-scenes account of the on- and off-field competition between the New York Giants, the Washington Redskins, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Dallas Cowboys, citing such influences as personality conflicts and sports fans.

Author: Delbert Reed
Publisher: Paul W Bryant Museum
ISBN: 9780615386058
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
The personal war stories of many of the Crimson Tide football players who participated in the Good War are told in When Winning Was Everything, a tribute to all the players who earned our enduring admiration not only on the football field but also in wartime. More than three hundred former University of Alabama football players and coaches saw military duty during World War II, and many of them played heroic leading roles in the bitter fight against Axis aggression. Their stories are given compelling life by Delbert Reed in When Winning Was Everything: Alabama Football Players in World War II. Alabama football players, like millions of other young men in America, rushed to join the fight soon after the Japanese bombed the US Navy's Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. Six Crimson Tide players joined the Marines at halftime during one Alabama football game. Two others--Paul "Bear" Bryant and George Zivich--literally pushed their way to the front of the line to join up. Former University of Alabama football players served on every front and in almost every major battle of World War II. They were privates and colonels, pilots and foot soldiers. They served on submarines andcarriers, flew bombers and led pack mules through thick Asian jungles. They were frontline Marines and training instructors and everything in between. They helped make up America's fighting team in wartime, and, as Delbert Reed shows, their victory was far greater than any Rose Bowl win.

Author: Kurt Edward Kemper
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252047281
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
The Cold War era spawned a host of anxieties in American society, and in response, Americans sought cultural institutions that reinforced their sense of national identity and held at bay their nagging insecurities. They saw football as a broad, though varied, embodiment of national values. College teams in particular were thought to exemplify the essence of America: strong men committed to hard work, teamwork, and overcoming pain. Toughness and defiance were primary virtues, and many found in the game an idealized American identity. In this book, Kurt Kemper charts the steadily increasing investment of American national ideals in the presentation and interpretation of college football, beginning with a survey of the college game during World War II. From the Army-Navy game immediately before Pearl Harbor, through the gradual expansion of bowl games and television coverage, to the public debates over racially integrated teams, college football became ever more a playing field for competing national ideals. Americans utilized football as a cultural mechanism to magnify American distinctiveness in the face of Soviet gains, and they positioned the game as a cultural force that embodied toughness, discipline, self-deprivation, and other values deemed crucial to confront the Soviet challenge. Americans applied the game in broad strokes to define an American way of life. They debated and interpreted issues such as segregation, free speech, and the role of the academy in the Cold War. College Football and American Culture in the Cold War Era offers a bold new contribution to our understanding of Americans' assumptions and uncertainties regarding the Cold War.

Author: Danny Spewak
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538157632
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
The remarkable story of a championship college football team and the sacrifices the young athletes made when Pearl Harbor forced their country into war. As the United States veered towards war during the fall of 1941, the University of Minnesota football team completed an undefeated national championship season—just fifteen days before the strike on Pearl Harbor. After the attack, players left behind college football stardom to command PT boats in the South Pacific, sweep mines on the beaches of Normandy, and join the invasion of Iwo Jima along with so many others from the Greatest Generation. In From the Gridiron to the Battlefield, Danny Spewak shares the struggles and triumphs of the Golden Gophers’ 1941 season, recalling how players battled on the field even with the threat of war hanging over their heads. When the United States finally entered the war, every member of the team participated in the war effort in one way or another. As Spewak recounts, some players remained stateside in the U.S. Navy, others sailed to the Pacific Theater and faced direct combat at Iwo Jima, while another earned a Purple Heart for his heroism at Normandy. Now more than 80 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, From the Gridiron to the Battlefield reveals the sacrifices and courage of the Greatest Generation through the eyes of the 1941 Golden Gophers.