A Team for America: The Army-Navy Game That Rallied a Nation - Couverture rigide

Roberts, Randy

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 054751106X ISBN 13 : 9780547511061

Editeur : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011

Synopsis

One of the greatest stories in American sports history: how the 1944 Army team beat Navy, captured a championship, and inspired a nation at war.

“There never has been a sports event, perhaps never an event of any kind, that received the attention of so many Americans in so many places around the world.” So wrote a reporter on December 2, 1944, about the greatest Army-Navy football game in the long history of that storied rivalry. World War II raged; President Roosevelt was seriously ill, only a few months away from death; and Americans on the home front suffered through shortages—including, just days before the game, a Thanksgiving without turkey or pie. But for one day, all that was forgotten.

Army’s team was ranked number 1, Navy’s number 2. Army’s years of football misery had been lifted by a wartime team and a brilliant coach who made them a contender. If they beat Navy, they would be national champions. For a few short hours the war seemed to stop, as U.S. soldiers around the world tuned in to a broadcast of the game and turned their thoughts toward home.

Randy Roberts has interviewed surviving players and coaches for nearly a decade to bring to life one of the most memorable stories in all of American sports. For three years, Army football upperclassmen had graduated and joined the fight, from Normandy beaches to Pacific atolls. For three hours, their alma mater gave them back one unforgettable performance.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

One of the greatest stories in American sports history: how the 1944 Army team beat Navy, captured a championship, and inspired a nation at war.

“There never has been a sports event, perhaps never an event of any kind, that received the attention of so many Americans in so many places around the world.” So wrote a reporter on December 2, 1944, about the greatest Army-Navy football game in the long history of that storied rivalry. World War II raged; President Roosevelt was seriously ill, only a few months away from death; and Americans on the home front suffered through shortages—including, just days before the game, a Thanksgiving without turkey or pie. But for one day, all that was forgotten.

Army’s team was ranked number 1, Navy’s number 2. Army’s years of football misery had been lifted by a wartime team and a brilliant coach who made them a contender. If they beat Navy, they would be national champions. For a few short hours the war seemed to stop, as U.S. soldiers around the world tuned in to a broadcast of the game and turned their thoughts toward home.

Randy Roberts has interviewed surviving players and coaches for nearly a decade to bring to life one of the most memorable stories in all of American sports. For three years, Army football upperclassmen had graduated and joined the fight, from Normandy beaches to Pacific atolls. For three hours, their alma mater gave them back one unforgettable performance.

Revue de presse

"This is a terrific book, a glorious look at a time when college footage—and particularly the annual Army-Navy game—helped stitch the country together."—Ken Burns

 

"An engrossing tale full of 20th-century military icons."—Publishers Weekly

 

"Roberts brings a historian’s thoroughness to the subject . . . a fascinating time in American collegiate sports history."—Kirkus Reviews

 

"A rousing celebration of a moment in history when college football was more than metaphor and entertainment, it was a gritty sidebar to real war."—Robert Lipsyte (An Accidental Sportswriter)

 

"A Team for America carries a special meaning for me because the Class of 1944, of which I was a member, reported to West Point at the same time that Earl Blaik was taking over as the academy’s head football coach. We therefore shared the frustrating period , which included three losses to Navy, in which Colonel Blaik built the team that dominated the national football scene between 1944 and 1946. Thoroughly researched, and containing many acute character analyses, Randy Roberts has taken me back in time as if the events had occurred only yesterday."—John S.D. Eisenhower

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Date d'édition: 2011
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 054751106X
• ISBN 13: 9780547511061
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 288
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Yeepin GmbH; 492000000000; sunshine12232@outlook.com; ; Alleestr.11; Kaiserslautern; Rheinland-Pfalz; 67655; Allemagne