Author: Jason Reid
Publication: Andscape, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Nonfiction/Sports/History
My Impression: This is a fascinating book, full of information and presented passionately by Reid. I particularly enjoyed learning about Fritz Pollard, a pioneering football legend from Chicago who was named after Frederick Douglass after his parents heard Douglass speak. Pollard followed older brothers who were talented athletes, including his brother Hughes who told the high school coach he wouldn’t play unless his kid brother could. Pollard became the star of the team.
Pollard believed in his own talent and beginning in 1912, bounced from college to college trying to find the best showcase for it. From Northwestern to Dartmouth to Harvard to Bates College in Maine, his nomadic journey ended in the fall of 1915, when he entered Brown as a 21-year-old freshman. In the era of the so-called “tramp athlete,” nothing about Pollard’s travels in search of the optimal football fit was in the least bit shocking.I knew Brown’s football team had gone to the Rose Bowl in 1916 (Harvard went in 1920) but I didn’t know it was Pollard’s play that got them invited. However, what should have been an incredible opportunity was a nightmare. Pollard was not always served in the dining car during the week-long train trip, the hotel in California refused to check him in, and there were the same taunts from the crowd he had heard at Ivy League venues. Worst of all, Brown had left their cleats in Providence, not expecting bad weather. Extreme rain caused the field to become so muddy that even speedy Pollard could not score and Brown lost to Washington State 0-14.
Another part of the book I found very interesting was the background Reid provides on the video that some of the most prominent black NFL players put together in January 2020 in which they call on the league to "condemn racism and a systemic oppression of black people … admit wrong in silencing our players from peacefully protesting … believe black lives matter." The video was released 10 days after George Floyd was killed while in custody of the Minneapolis Police Department and was aimed at the NFL management and owners that opposed peaceful protesting and had done nothing to address systemic racism except to make donations. Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs was the most famous of the players involved and potentially had the most to lose – and knew it, but recognized that his name was important to the video’s making an impact, which it did. These are just two examples of the history and more recent anecdotes that Reid weaves into his narrative.
Purchase Links: Bookshop.org * Barnes & Noble * Book Depository * Amazon
This sounds very interesting, and good work by the author on reclaiming some lost histories.
ReplyDeleteI agree, this would be an interesting topic, even though I have never been a football fan. I was a college student at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa from 1966 - 1971, thus about the time that the sport was being integrated there and in other Southern colleges. Although I wasn't aware of any of that at the time. I read a couple of articles online about black football players at the University of Alabama and the University of Florida. Just amazing to look back on that now.
ReplyDeleteThe history involved is just as interesting as the football! However, the last time I recommended a book involving football to my book group, they did a lot of complaining so I won't try them on this one. In fact, I chose the book we are reading next week - Take Six Girls which is about the Mitford Sisters. The reviews were good but the two people who just finished it were quite negative.
ReplyDeleteTracy, I am guessing you never made it to see the Crimson Tide in action? I think it would be fun to see a big time game! I am heading to Alabama and will actually be there a month from today. I am going to Selma and then to Hattiesburg for my library school graduation. My mother agreed to go with me so we will have a fun little road trip.
Interesting that you will be reading Take Six Girls. I just ordered a copy of that.
ReplyDeleteAs far as football games at the U of A Campus, yes I did go to a few games. The last two years I was there I was dating my first husband and we would got to a couple a year, I think. The really exciting ones were the grudge match games with Auburn, but I don't remember going to a college game at Legion Field in Birmingham. They were always held on Thanksgiving weekend. That was a looooong time ago, I have been married to Glen nearly 43 years now. I think I took it for granted, they did not seem that special to me. Neither one of us were football fans so who knows why we went. Parties, social activities?
How exciting that you are coming to Alabama and then to your library school graduation. I am glad your mother is going along. Alabama is a beautiful state. (Mississippi too; I have cousins there.) I lived in Selma for a year (1972ish) when my first husband was in pilot training in the Air Force. Being an Air Force wife is yucky but at the time I was oblivious.
How fascinating! I used to really love football (baseball has taken its place), but I would still be interested in the history of the Black football athletes.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being on this tour!