Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football

Why we love the game, what is at risk, and the fight to save it. In search of the sportâÈçs old ideals amid the roaring flood of hypocrisy and greed, bestselling author John U. Bacon embedded himself in four programsâÈ'Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and NorthwesternâÈ'and captured college footballâÈçs oldest, biggest, most storied league, the Big Ten, at its tipping point. He sat in as coaches dissected game film, he ate dinner at training tables, and he listened in locker rooms. He talked with tailgating fans and college presidents, and he spent months in the company of the gifted young athletes who play the game. None of BaconâÈçs discoveries is more poignant than this: the last, true defenders of the student-athlete ideal are the players themselves, who, even as money changes everything around them, are left to carry the future of the league, the game, and more than a century of tradition on their backs every fall Saturday. Fourth and Long reveals intimate scenes behind closed doors, from a teamâÈçs angry face-off with their athletic director to a defensive lineman acing his masterâÈçs exams in theoretical math. It captures the private moment when coach Urban Meyer earned the devotion of Ohio StateâÈçs Buckeyes on their way to a perfect season. It shows MichiganâÈçs athletic department endangering the very traditions that distinguish the college game from all others. And it recreates the euphoria of the Northwestern Wildcats winning their first bowl game in decades, even as they do honor to the student-athlete ideal. Most unforgettably, Fourth and Long finds what the national media missed in the ugly aftermath of Penn StateâÈçs tragic scandal: the unheralded story of players who joined forces with Coach Bill OâÈçBrien to save the universityâÈçs treasured programâÈ'and with it, a piece of the gameâÈçs soul. This is the work of a writer in love with an old gameâÈ'a game he sees at the precipice. BaconâÈçs deep knowledge of sports history and his sensitivity to the tribal subcultures of the college game power this elegy to a beloved and endangered American institution.

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