Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner (1871-1954) stands among the giants of the coaching profession, alongside Knute Rockne, Amos Alonzo Stagg, George Halas and Vince Lombardi. Warner turned a ragtag team from a Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Indian boarding school into a national power and later won multiple national championships at the University of Pittsburgh and Stanford. His 319 victories made him one of the winningest coach in college football history. A pioneer of the forward pass, he is credited with inventing the single-wing formation--widely considered the genesis of modern-day offense--as well as the double wing, the three-point stance for backs, the naked bootleg and the spiral punt. He also developed improvements to shoulder pads, tackling dummies, blocking sleds and much more. The book traces Warner's rise from his small town roots to becoming one of the most influential coaches in football, a man who helped refine the sport from a tedious, push-and-shove affair into the dynamic, high-speed game of today.
Pop Warner Little Scholars, commonly known as Pop Warner, began in the suburbs of Philadelphia as a four-team league called the Junior Football Conference. Sports enthusiast Joseph Tomlin established the league in 1929. The organization was renamed in 1934 in honor of legendary football coach Glenn S. "Pop" Warner and has blossomed into the largest national youth football and cheerleading organization in the United States. Pop Warner has rejuvenated participation in youth sports by instilling lifelong values of teamwork and dedication with an emphasis on academic excellence to complement and enhance the athletics.Pop Warner Little Scholars offers an inside look at the history of one of America's oldest youth sports organizations. Approximately sixty-five percent of National Football League players and coaches were at one time involved in the Pop Warner program. Important moments in the organization's history are depicted throughout the book, including the first national championship game in 1947, the beginning of the scholastic recognition program in 1960, and the official organization of its cheerleading program in 1973, although it was a part of Pop Warner for decades. The organization's two major national events, the Scholar All-American Program and the Pop Warner Super Bowl, Cheer, and Dance championships, serve as the highlights of the year for young scholar-athletes.
A stunning work of narrative nonfiction, Carlisle vs. Army recounts the fateful 1912 gridiron clash that pitted one of America’s finest athletes, Jim Thorpe, against the man who would become one of the nation’s greatest heroes, Dwight D. Eisenhower. But beyond telling the tale of this momentous event, Lars Anderson also reveals the broader social and historical context of the match, lending it his unique perspectives on sports and culture at the dawn of the twentieth century. This story begins with the infamous massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee, in 1890, then moves to rural Pennsylvania and the Carlisle Indian School, an institution designed to “elevate” Indians by uprooting their youths and immersing them in the white man’s ways. Foremost among those ways was the burgeoning sport of football. In 1903 came the man who would mold the Carlisle Indians into a juggernaut: Glenn “Pop” Warner, the son of a former Union Army captain. Guided by Warner, a tireless innovator and skilled manager, the Carlisle eleven barnstormed the country, using superior team speed, disciplined play, and tactical mastery to humiliate such traditional powerhouses as Harvard, Yale, Michigan, and Wisconsin–and to, along the way, lay waste American prejudices against Indians. When a troubled young Sac and Fox Indian from Oklahoma named Jim Thorpe arrived at Carlisle, Warner sensed that he was in the presence of greatness. While still in his teens, Thorpe dazzled his opponents and gained fans across the nation. In 1912 the coach and the Carlisle team could feel the national championship within their grasp. Among the obstacles in Carlisle’s path to dominance were the Cadets of Army, led by a hardnosed Kansan back named Dwight Eisenhower. In Thorpe, Eisenhower saw a legitimate target; knocking the Carlisle great out of the game would bring glory both to the Cadets and to Eisenhower. The symbolism of this matchup was lost on neither Carlisle’s footballers nor on Indians across the country who followed their exploits. Less than a quarter century after Wounded Knee, the Indians would confront, on the playing field, an emblem of the very institution that had slaughtered their ancestors on the field of battle and, in defeating them, possibly regain a measure of lost honor. Filled with colorful period detail and fascinating insights into American history and popular culture, Carlisle vs. Army gives a thrilling, authoritative account of the events of an epic afternoon whose reverberations would be felt for generations. "Carlisle vs. Army is about football the way that The Natural is about baseball.” –Jeremy Schaap, author of I
A Sports Illustrated Best Book of the Year: “Vivid portraits of the kids, parents and coaches of the Greater Miami Pop Warner league” (Linda Robertson, The Miami Herald). Although its participants are still in grade school, Pop Warner football is serious business in Miami, where local teams routinely advance to the national championships. Games draw thousands of fans; recruiters vie for nascent talent; drug dealers and rap stars bankroll teams; and the stakes are so high that games sometimes end in gunshots. In America’s poorest neighborhood, troubled parents dream of NFL stardom for children who long only for a week in Disney World at the Pop Warner Super Bowl. In 2001, journalist Robert Andrew Powell spent a year following two teams through roller-coaster seasons. The Liberty City Warriors, former national champs, will suffer the team’s first-ever losing season. The Palmetto Raiders, undefeated for two straight years, will be rewarded for good play with limo rides and steak dinners. But their flamboyant coach (the “Darth Vader of Pop Warner coaches”) will face defeat in a down-to-the-wire playoff game. We Own This Game is an inside-the-huddle look into a world of innocence and corruption, where every kickoff bares political, social, and racial implications; an unforgettable drama that shows us just what it is to win and to lose in America. “Powell elevates We Own This Game well above the average sports book to a significant sociological study.” —San Francisco Chronicle
America's favorite sport and Native American history collide in this thrilling true story of the legendary Carlisle Indians football team and their rise from underdogs to champions.
