A College Football Time Capsule

When writing about the death of Dan Jenkins in this space ten days ago, I made mention of the book you see pictured here, "Saturday's America".  It was an updated collection of long form articles that Jenkins wrote when he was covering college football for Sports Illustrated.  It was published in 1970, and I read the book when I was in college.   Jenkins' death prompted memories of that book, so I went to the library, checked it out and re-read it last week.

1970.  This book truly is a time capsule for college football fans.  To give you an idea of just how long ago 1970 was, College Football-wise, consider the following:

In 1970, Joe Paterno was in only his fifth year as head coach at Penn State.  In fact, at one point in the book, Jenkins referred to him as "the young head coach at Penn State".  When was the last time you thought of Joe Paterno being young?

In 1970, Nick Saban was playing defensive back at Kent State University.

In 1970, Pat Narduzzi was celebrating his fourth birthday, and Dabo Swinney was celebrating his first birthday. 

You get the idea.

Anyway, the book covers some great stories from throughout college football's first 100 years, with primary emphasis on the 1960's.  Here are some of the highlights covered in separate chapters of the book:

• The arrival of Ara Parseghian in South Bend, and how he revived the storied Notre Dame football traditions after the moribund coaching tenures of Joe Kuharich and Terry Brennan.  Also prominent in this chapter was a young QB out of Butler, PA, Terry Hanratty.
• Stories of a various college whiz kids of the era such as Tommy Nobis, Dick Butkus, Joe Namath, and O.J. Simpson.
• A great chapter about the "Game of the Decade" - the 1966 game between Notre Dame and Michigan State that ended in a 10-10 tie. The game where, as Jenkins put it,  Ara "tied one for the Gipper".
• "Pursuit of a Blue Chipper", a story about college recruiting that focused on the pursuit of a  high school QB out of Abilene, Texas, Jack Mildren.  If anything, recruiting has no doubt become even more of a blood sport fifty years later than it was back in the 1960's.  Mildren eventually ended up at Oklahoma where he was the main cog in OU's wishbone offense.  I remembered being at the game when Mildren and his Sooners - Greg Pruitt was the featured running back - blasted Pitt out of Pitt Stadium with that wishbone attack in 1971.  The final score was 55-29 (I had to look that up), and Pitt was never in the game.
• A story about the history of the Heisman Trophy.  This chapter seems remarkably quaint here in the 21st century ever since the Heisman Trophy was co-opted by ESPN and Nissan.
• An entire chapter about Woody Hayes, many years before he punched that kid from Clemson on national television.  He still came across as a complete and total horse's ass.

There's lots more, and if you are a fan of college football and it's history, it would be worth your while to seek out this one, although you can probably only find it in libraries and on dusty shelves in used book stores these days.  

If I had one criticism, it's the fact that Jenkins often resorts to folksy, Texas dialect when writing.  You know, quoting guys  who say "dadgummit" in every other sentence and refer to the game as "fooball".    That's okay in the occasional magazine article, but it gets old when your bludgeoned with it for 290 pages in a book.

A Three Star rating from The Grandstander.