Michigan Football Books Offer Timely Snapshots Of College Sports
When Jim Harbaugh was named the head football coach at the University of Michigan at the start of the year, John U. Bacon might have been as thrilled as any of the hundreds of thousands of maize and blue alumni.
Bacon was putting the finishing touches on “Endzone: The Rise, Fall and Return of Michigan Football” (St. Martin’s Press) when Harbaugh was summoned back to his alma mater from the NFL in rock-star fashion.
It’s the second of two books he’s written detailing the dramatic travails of the Wolverines program in the last decade. In “Three and Out,” published in 2011, Bacon wrote about the ill-fated Rich Rodriguez coaching era that lasted just three seasons.
Bacon has been as relentless on the promotional trail about “Endzone” as Harbaugh has been with potential recruits. He has appeared, like many authors do, on countless radio and television programs, has scheduled a book tour that includes visits with Michigan alumni associations (including a group in my city), has answered fan questions on Reddit and is very active on social media.
Bacon totally gets the art of engagement with college football fans in a multimedia age. The words on paper aren’t always enough. To get people to read those words requires a promotional zeal that Bacon has mastered with great enthusiasm.
His genuine embrace of college football, despite its many problems and concerns, also adds to his appeal. His criticisms are often blistering, but they sound more like those of a disillusioned fan than of a cynical journalist. There is a distinction to be made.
Like his Rodriguez book, “Endzone” is about more than what transpires on the field in The Big House. Bacon goes deep into what’s troubled one of the richest athletic departments in the nation at a time when college athletics is undergoing massive change.
One of Bacon’s most startling revelations is Michigan AD Dave Brandon’s proposal to not play archrival Ohio State every year. It was the perfect example, Bacon suggests, of a corporate executive-turned-AD -- and a former Michigan football player too -- who was totally out of touch with what made his tradition-laden fan base tick.
When Brandon was fired during last season, the departure of embattled coach Brady Hoke was only a matter of time. Just weeks after leaving the San Francisco 49ers, Harbaugh arrived in Ann Arbor with universal approval (Here’s an “Endzone” excerpt about all that).
Bacon, a Michigan grad who previously wrote glowingly of Bo Schembechler’s leadership qualities, teaches journalism at the school and proudly brandished being banished from the football press box by Brandon for his critical pen.
Bacon also wrote “Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football,” one of the few cri di coeur books on the subject that exudes a fan’s authentic passion, rather than the smug pathos of a detached scold.
One reviewer thought “Endzone” was a bit relentless about Brandon, and that Michigan still has plenty of behind-the-scenes work to do, regardless of what Harbaugh’s on-the-field results may be.
But if you’re looking for a book-worthy examination of what’s happening in college football, and college athletics in general, Bacon’s trilogy has come along at the perfect time.
New book reviews
At The Washington Post, Carlos Lozada writes that Gilbert M. Gaul’s “Billion Dollar Ball,” which digs into the big-money culture of college football, is “hard and challenging” and more than a bit uneven.
Library Journal has more on new American football releases, including a Walter Camp biography, the Stagg-Yost rivalry, and a remembrance of the first Super Bowl by the late Frank Gifford.
British sports journalist Mihir Bose likes a new history of rugby, “The Oval World,” by academic sports historian Tony Collins, and uses the word “magisterial” in his praises.
Reads of the week
Not long after Roberta Vinci dropped Serena Williams in the U.S. Open semifinals, Brian Phillips dropped this for Grantland about perhaps the biggest upset in tennis history. While we savor slow-cooker prose at Sports Biblio, this is an excellent example of breezy deadline writing.
For ESPN The Magazine, Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr. detail what tore the NFL and New England Patriots apart, from Spygate to Deflategate. And likely beyond.
At SB Nation Longform, legendary boxing writer Thomas Hauser goes deep on questions surrounding the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s testing for the Mayweather-Pacquaio and other bouts.
San Francisco Chronicle pop culture writer Peter Hartlaub recalls the night in 1994 that Giants fans booed Beat poet Allen Ginsberg at the now-demolished Candlestick Park after a poetry reading. His subsequent ceremonial first pitch was flawless.
Sports history files
Not many journalists covered Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame festivities this week, but Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News did, and put together this fine tribute to inductee Jo Jo White, who is recovering from surgery to remove a brain tumor.
Colorful Dominican pitcher Joaquin Andujar, who starred for the St. Louis Cardinals’ 1982 World Series champions, died Tuesday at age 62 of complications from diabetes.
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