The History of American College Football informs us that a 1925 Harvard Crimson editorial wrote, “The present evil of football is in its overemphasis in the college. It is in the college, therefore, that remedies must be sought and found” (76). Colleges and universities have faced this conundrum since football's rise to prominence in the late 1800s and continue to struggle with the place of football in their institutions.
This collection of ten chapters by ten separate authors examines how academic institutions, both individually and collectively, have struggled with finding the precise limits and roles of football teams within their broader academic mission. One contributor notes, “Over time, the tension between football's negatives and positives drove development of the game as a public-relations function to the degree that it would come to be described as the main instrument of public relations for institutions of higher education and the principal means...
