Bragging Rights: A Season Inside the SEC, College Football's Toughest Conference

by Richard Ernsberger

Overview

An inside look at the SEC's most prominent programs as they unfolded during the 1999 season, this book includes in-depth profiles of the league's top players and best coaches.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780871319616
Publisher:	Lyons
Publication date:	08/30/2001
Edition description:	REVISED
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.78(d)

Read an Excerpt

It was good to be back in the South. After twelve years in New York City and two years in Tokyo with Newsweek magazine, during which time I wrote mostly esoteric foreign news stories, I was getting back to my rootsymajor-college southern football.

Table of Contents

Contents Roughnecks and Romance: An Introduction to the SEC 1 1. Rocky Top 22 2. Impressions: Growing Up with Travis Taylor 36 3. Impressions: Strapping It Down with Raynoch Thompson 42 4. The Head Ball Coach 48 5. Only Gators Get Out Alive: Tennessee Versus Florida 72 6. The Memphis Avengers 99 7. The Devil's Brew or Drink of Happiness? The Vandy Experience 113 8. Impressions: The Talented (Talkative) Shaun Alexander 126 9. The Striver 133 10. In the Crosshairs: Justin Smiley 153 11. A House that Moves: Lynn Lang and Albert Means 190 12. Lions and Tigers and Bears (Oh, My!): Rating the Coaches 206 13. Impressions: Quincy Carter 212 14. Behind the Scenes: The Video Guy 216 15. Reflected Glory: Auburn Versus Itself (and Alabama) 222 16. Impressions: Ainsley Battles and the Art of Playing Safety 255 17. The Cocktail Party: Georgia Versus Florida 261 18. The Lost Boys 271 19. A Matter of Degrees: Graduation Rates 277 20. Invitation to a Beheading: The Fall of Gerry DiNardo 280 21. Belly of the Beast: Three Tigers Talk Football, Agents, Injuries, and Coaches 301 22. Showdown: The SEC ChampionshipyAlabama Versus Florida 315 23. A Summing Up 328 24. Favorite Things 339

Editorial Reviews

Dawgs, Gators, Vols, and the Crimson Tide mix it up in this lively, panoramic look at the 1999 Southeast Conference Football season. Newsweek reporter (and Tennessee grad) Ernsberger organizes his story around four big games: Florida-Tennessee, Florida-Georgia, Auburn-Alabama, and (in the championship) Florida-Alabama. He conveys the great fun these contests hold for the fan: RVs, cookouts, drinking, and school rituals that make for an enjoyable weekend. Florida Gator fans, for example, were so loyal they drove through Hurricane Floyd to make the Tennessee game in Gainesville. Between games, Ernsberger portrays a variety of SEC figures. Steve Spurrier of Florida and Phillip Fulmer of Tennessee attempt to win another national championship. Vanderbilt's Woody Widenhofer recruits across the country to keep up with the bigger state schools. Jerry DiNardo of LSU gets fired. Players—Shaun Alexander (a star at Alabama) and Ainsley Battles (a solid player at Vanderbilt)—balance football with good academic work. Joe Harrington, the Video Guy at Tennessee, supervises six cameramen and has a $25,000 budget just for videotape. Recruiting high-school stars is critical business, and Bobby Burton provides the latest news at his Web site (rivals.com): Albert"the House that Moves" Means is a Memphis high-school standout and has his choice of schools. (Lynn Lang, his coach, guides him, keeps an eye on his studies, and drives a new $30,000 vehicle soon after Means decides to go to Alabama.) Better editing would have improved Ernsberger's account, and fans of Ole Miss, Kentucky, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Mississippi Sate will be angry at his neglect oftheirprograms. But, overall, this is a good blend of the excitement of big-game weekends and the Machiavellian world of recruiting, coaching, and managing alumni at large competitive universities.

Kirkus Reviews