AMERICAN ODYSSEY: A JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF THE REVOLUTION IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS LIVE!
“American Odyssey is a fascinating road trip through the nation of college football, past and present, with an expert guide in the driver’s seat. Mark Schipper supplies a powerful reminder—and a much-needed reminder—of why college football matters.”
—Jonathan Eig, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for King: A Life
“American Odyssey is one part keen observation, one part history lesson and one part comic opera. Mark Schipper calls it a journey, but what he has written is a love letter to his beloved pastime of college football. It goes down like a cold beer in a hot stadium—smooth, refreshing and a bit intoxicating.”
—Ivan Maisel, author of American Coach, The Triumph and Tragedy of Notre Dame Legend Frank Leahy
“If you love the game, its history, and the stories behind the teams and personalities that make college football special, this one belongs on your reading list.”
—Steve Spurrier, Heisman Trophy winner, National Champion, Head Ball Coach
“I naturally jumped right to the chapter on Michigan-Ohio State, the rivalry I know best, and Schipper delivered in spades. But then I couldn’t resist diving into Alabama-Tennessee, the Florida trio, and the Ivy Leagues. Schipper’s a pro’s pro, and it shows, but I kept turning the pages simply because it was so much fun. If you care about college football, or want to recruit a new fan, this is your book.”
—John U. Bacon, New York Times bestselling author, The Gales of November
“This is an absolutely stunning book. A must-read for any college football fan.”
—Paul Finebaum, Host: The Paul Finebaum Show, ESPN
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FROM THE BACK COVER
Join college football aficionado Mark Schipper on a journey across the United States by plane, train, and automobile in search of the sport's soul during a revolutionary period. Over the course of two seasons and four months on the road Schipper set out to explore ways in which college football and American culture are inextricably intertwined, and how the upheavals rocking the sport—conference realignment, rising costs, and roster instability—could irreparably alter that special connection.
Drawing on the rivalries that turn autumn Saturdays into unforgettable dramas, Schipper pilgrimages to the sport's biggest weekends, meeting legendary figures like Oklahoma's Barry Switzer prior to a Red River Shootout in Dallas, and former Florida coach Steve Spurrier, with whom he spent a morning talking football at his restaurant-museum in Gainesville.
Readers will be fascinated by an extended West Coast swing spent examining programs at UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington following their shocking relocation to the Midwestern-based Big Ten Conference, and the cataclysmic demise of the formerly platinum-tier Pac-12. On the opposite coast, basking in the heritage of the Army-Navy game, a preposterous spying scare at Annapolis leads to pathos at West Point, where veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan give Schipper a personal tour of Army's campus.
Schipper's Odyssey skillfully weaves together history, expert insight, and first-person experience in a celebration of the American imagination, the wonderfully diverse American landscape, and the folk sport that has bound together a country in passionate competition since 1869, when a group of hard-nosed collegians brought it to life on a fenced-off cow pasture in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
"Mark’s book does an incredible job of going beyond the ‘what and when’ of college football to tell you the ‘how and why’. It’s a personal, in depth dive into a diverse and complicated sport whose history has both captivated and infuriated us at the same time”
—Joey Harrington, Oregon Ducks' All-American quarterback, Heisman Trophy Finalist
“Mark’s UCLA chapter was fantastic. As a lifelong Bruins’ fan—I was born the year they won their only national championship—it was all there. Kenny Washington, Jackie Robinson, Woody Strode, Red Sanders, Tommy Prothro, Gary Beban, and all the Gutty Little Bruins. These were my childhood idols. Mark’s book brought them all to life and for that I thank him.”
—Randy Cross, CBS Sports, 1976 Rose Bowl champion at UCLA, three-time Super Bowl champion
5TH DOWN national odyssey
media appearances
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