College Sports Book
College Athletics Clips, June 8, 2005

From Memphis comes an excellent review of college sports books from Michael Nelson, Rhodes political science professor and baseball associate. This compendium of college sports books is highly enjoyable and enlightening in all its insight, eloquence and comprehensiveness. This information was included in the Chronicle of Higher Education, June 10, 2005, issue.

Here are Professor Nelson’s top ten best college sports books and others:
Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Journey Into the Heart of Fan Mania, by Warren St. John (Crown Publishers, 2004).
The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It, by Neal Bascomb (Houghton Mifflin, 2004).
The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values, by James L. Shulman and William G. Bowen (Princeton University Press, 2001).
A Season on the Brink: A Year With Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers, by John Feinstein (Macmillan, 1986).
End Zone, by Don DeLillo (Houghton Mifflin, 1972).
My Losing Season, by Pat Conroy (Nan A. Talese, 2002).
I Am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004).
Transition Game: How Hoosiers Went Hip-Hop, by L. Jon Wertheim (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2005).
King Football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio and Newsreels, Movies and Magazines, the Weekly and the Daily Press, by Michael Oriard (University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
They Call Me Coach, by John Wooden, with Jack Tobin (Word Books, 1972).
.

ALSO RECOMMENDED:
The All Americans, by Lars Anderson (St. Martin's Press, 2004)
College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy, by John Sayle Watterson (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000)
The Courting of Marcus Dupree, by Willie Morris (Doubleday, 1983)
Dream Season: A Professor Joins America's Oldest Semi-Pro Football Team, by Bob Cowser Jr. (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2004)
The Game They Played, by Stanley Cohen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977)
Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics, by John R. Thelin (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994)
The Last Amateurs: Playing for Glory and Honor in Division I College Basketball, by John Feinstein (Little, Brown, 2000)
Lords of the Ring: The Triumph and Tragedy of College Boxing's Greatest Team, by Doug Moe (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004)
Meat on the Hoof: The Hidden World of Texas Football, by Gary Shaw (St. Martin's Press, 1972)
A Place on the Team: The Triumph and Tragedy of Title IX, by Welch Suggs (Princeton University Press, 2005)
Raw Recruits, by Alexander Wolff and Armen Keteyian (Pocket Books, 1990)
Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle, by Michael Oriard (University of North Carolina Press, 1993)
Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Education Values, by William G. Bowen and Sarah A. Levin (Princeton University Press, 2003)
Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football, by Murray Sperber (Henry Holt, 1993)
Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism and Conflict in Big-Time College Sports, by Andrew Zimbalist (Princeton University Press, 1999)