Red Grange and the Rise of Modern Football

By John Martin Carroll

Book 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252071662
• ISBN13: 9780252071669
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.7" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

When Humility Still Mattered

This book does a great job of giving interesting detail and thoughtful perspective so you can see how an individual fit into the times and how the events of the single life mirrored the larger developments in society. You learn a lot about football, about men of that era and what character traits they valued, and about the role of the media and it's use of celebrity to create an audience. I enjoyed this so much I bought another Carroll book on a different early football hero - Fritz Pollard - and that is just as informative and insightful.

Red Grange is Number One!

My father always talked about Red Grange. I never really knew who he was. This book brings everything into perspective. Mr. Carroll captures the essence of Red Grange, but more than that, he makes clear why Grange was the most important college player of this century and how he created the momentum which led to the explosion of pro football