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9780252076695 Academic Inspection Copy

The End of Autumn

Reflections on My Life in Football
  • ISBN-13: 9780252076695
  • Publisher: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
    Imprint: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
  • By Michael Oriard
  • Price: AUD $64.99
  • Stock: 0 in stock
  • Availability: This book is temporarily out of stock, order will be despatched as soon as fresh stock is received.
  • Local release date: 13/09/2009
  • Format: Paperback 368 pages Weight: 0g
  • Categories: Sport & leisure industries [KNSP]
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Much of Michael Oriard's education took place outside the schoolroom of his native Spokane, Washington, during ''slaughter practices'' on high school football fields. He was taught to ''punish'' and ''dominate,'' to rouse his school spirit with religion, and to ''tough it'' through injuries, even serious ones. At the age of eighteen he entered Notre Dame and walked onto the football team, where studying hard was never harder. By his senior year, playing for Ara Parseghian's Fighting Irish, he was the starting center and co-captain of the team.After graduating, he signed with the Kansas City Chiefs and head coach Hank Stram. There he learned what it meant to be ''owned.'' He rediscovered the game as it was played by grown men with families who were still treated like children and who dreaded nothing more than the end of their football careers. And without their fully realizing the consequences, every hard tackle inflicted its injury, some gradually growing into chronic conditions, some suddenly cutting a player's career short and ushering him off the field to be soon forgotten.Originally published in 1982, The End of Autumn recounts the experiences of an ordinary player in a bygone era--before ESPN, before the Bowl Championship Series, before free agency and million-dollar salaries for NFL players. In a new afterword, Oriard reflects on the process of writing the book and how the game has changed in the thirty years since his ''retirement'' from football at the age of twenty-six.
Introduction: My Last Game xi; Part One: Seasons of Youth; One: Playing Games 3; Two: Hey, Look Me Over 27; Part Two: Under the Golden Dome; Three: In the Land of Legends 57; Four: Aches and Pains and Dreams Come True 85; Five: My Notre Dame 123; Part Three: Playing for Pay; Six: Rookies and Veterans 159; Seven: The End of Toughness 191; Eight: The Owners and the Owned 231; Part Four: The End of Autumn; Nine: A Tragedy for Heroes 271; Ten: Adjusting 299; Afterword 329; Index
''If you read one sports book this fall, try to make it The End of Autumn by Michael Oriard. This is a book about football, what it is or should be, the place it fills or should fill in American life, what it feels like when it's played properly.'' Sports Illustrated
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