How Football Explains America

ESPN national correspondent and veteran NFL reporter Sal Paolantonio takes readers on a journey through the cultural history of American football--from its earliest post-Civil War roots to the high-flying acrobatics of the present day game. Using the historic 2007 season as a cinematic canvas, Paolantonio explains how American football evolved from the old English rugby and soccer and why every change in the rules, every attempt to recast the game of football was often a simple reflection of who we are as a people. Why, in America, was it simply not enough to kick the ball from goal to goal? Why did we have to pick it up and throw it? What was it about us as a people that we had to have possession of the ball, gain territory, and advance? Who came up with those concepts and why? We love football for the same reasons we love John Wayne and Luke Skywalker. In football, the hero (the quarterback) is on a journey through hostile territory like Ulysses or other heroes from time immemorial. Football is a definable story in a finite amount of time perfectly suited for television. Well, they have televisions in Japan. Why hasn't it caught on there? Sociologists often explain that football was a game that naturally evolved out of the industrial revolution in late 19th Century. But the last time anybody looked, the industrial revolution happened in Europe first and foremost. And, after years of trying, American football has gone dormant in Europe. How Football Explains America explains how America created football and why. Other societies and cultures have been just as violent. Why is our game the most violent? Why is it the only sport in the world with a huddle? How is Tom Brady a directdescendant of Jim Thorpe? How did a simple rule change in 1882 foreshadow Gen. Douglas McArthur's influence on Bill Parcells? What role did the Italian-American, Scots-Irish, and Slovakian immigrants play in shaping American football into the game it is today? Using some of those 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.