Red Grange and the Rise of Modern Football

by John M. Carroll

Overview

Before the Super Bowl, even before the NFL, there was Red Grange. Catapulted into the public eye in 1924 by scoring four touchdowns in twelve minutes for the University of Illinois, the "Galloping Ghost" went on to a trailblazing career as a professional player, Hollywood idol, and broadcaster. He ranked with Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey in the 1920s as one of the heralded figures in America's "golden age of sport." 

Grange's spectacular performance as a college player coincided with football's evolution into a rallying point of university life boosted by post-World War I money, cars, roads, stadiums, and mass media. John Carroll depicts the life and career of the soft-spoken pioneer who helped lift pro football above its reputation as "a dirty little business run by rogues and bargain-basement entrepreneurs." A reluctant folk hero, Grange stood as a symbol of older, rural American values: an unpretentious self-made individual making a mark in a society increasingly controlled by machines, vast corporations, and stifling bureaucracies. His story is an essential element in understanding how football became central in American culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252071669
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	03/17/2004
Series:	Sport and Society
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

John M. Carroll is Regents Professor and Distinguished Faculty Lecturer at Lamar University and the author of Fritz Pollard: Pioneer in Racial Advancement.

Table of Contents

	Preface	vii
	Prologue: Comet over the Prairie	1
1.	An Odd Kind of Family	11
2.	Football and the Emergence of Red Grange	25
3.	Grange and the Golden Age of Sport	43
4.	Football and Mass Society	59
5.	A Media Frenzy	77
6.	The Great Debate	97
7.	The Grand Eastern Tour	107
8.	Barnstorming, Hollywood, and the AFL	119
9.	Down but Not Out	140
10.	A Solid Pro Player	158
11.	Finding a Niche	181
12.	A Reluctant Hero	196
	Epilogue: Red Grange in Perspective	211
	Notes	219
	Index	255

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the North American Society for Sport History Book Award, 1999.

"In addition to the hindsighted look into Grange's character, the book also gives us a window into the early days of professional football and lets us see how far the pro game has come in the past eighty years."—State Journal-Register

"A special appeal of Carroll's detailed biography is that it can be read on two levels: as a straightforward chronicle of Grange's exploits in sports and entertainment and as a thoughtful inquiry into the origins and meaning of a leading American sports phenomenon. . . .While clarifying the details of Grange's life and debunking some aspects of his career, Carroll still manages to retain the appealing qualities of a gifted football player whose actual exploits delighted thousands of onlookers and captured the imaginations of millions more."—Vernon L. Volpe, Journal of Illinois History

"Sport historians should find this biography a welcome addition to the body of work emerging on the careers of specific athletic figures. Carroll sets the record straight: the record, that is, until now concocted of journalists' anecdotes and Grange's typically sanitized 'as-told-to' autobiography."—Michael Oriard, author of The End of Autumn: Reflections on My Life in Football

"Carroll deals with the many myths surrounding Grange while maintaining his 'larger than life' athletic experiences. After all, Grange will probably be remembered as the most significant collegiate football player of the twentieth century."—Ronald Smith, author of Big-Time Football at Harvard, 1905

From the Publisher