Onward to Victory: The Creation of Modern College Sports

From the acclaimed author of __Shake Down the Thunder__. With the 1940 release of the classic film Knute Rockne, All American, the myth of the hero scholar-athlete was born, and with it came the age of big-time college sports in America. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including press accounts, letters and diaries, historical papers, and interviews with many who were there, Sperber recounts how the myths created by Hollywood studios were embellished and codified by a hungry press, infiltrating the collective unconscious with epic stories of players, coaches, and teams. As college sports became a mainstay of popular entertainment, they also were fertile ground for near-fatal scandal, ultimately giving rise to the modern NCAA. Sperber vividly re-creates the world of postwar America, with its all-powerful radiomen, its lurid press, its growing prosperity, and, of course, the infancy of television. A brilliant, detailed, and engrossing work of social history for not only sports fans, but anyone interested in the development of modern American culture.

From the acclaimed author of Shake Down the Thunder.

With the 1940 release of the classic film Knute Rockne, All American, the myth of the hero scholar-athlete was born, and with it came the age of big-time college sports in America. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including press accounts, letters and diaries, historical papers, and interviews with many who were there, Sperber recounts how the myths created by Hollywood studios were embellished and codified by a hungry press, infiltrating the collective unconscious with epic stories of players, coaches, and teams. As college sports became a mainstay of popular entertainment, they also were fertile ground for near-fatal scandal, ultimately giving rise to the modern NCAA. Sperber vividly re-creates the world of postwar America, with its all-powerful radiomen, its lurid press, its growing prosperity, and, of course, the infancy of television. A brilliant, detailed, and engrossing work of social history for not only sports fans, but anyone interested in the development of modern American culture.

Sperber looks at the crisis in college sports caused by WWII and cheating scandals of the 1940s and 50s and how they shaped the NCAA and the popular perception of college players, coaches and teams. He focuses on the key role played by the Norte Dame football program Traces the rise of college sports in America, drawing on a variety of press accounts, letters, journals, and interviews to discuss how college sports became a mainstay of popular entertainment, the Hollywood influence, and recent scandals