John Feinstein? Ivy League football? Fascinating history? Sign me up! Did this book deliver? Well, read the review and find out.
Title/Author: “The Ancient Eight: College Football’s Ivy League and the Game They Play Today” by John Feinstein
Rating: 3 of 5 stars (okay)
Review: John Feinstein has long been one of my favorite sports authors – whenever I saw a book that he wrote, it immediately gets put on my “need to read” shelf. So, when I saw this one about Ivy League football, I immediately requested an advance copy and started reading. I also saw a couple reviews of the book – one glowing, one not so much. I felt that this was in-between and while an okay book, I don’t believe it was one of his better works.
I’ll start with the disappointing aspects. The first is that one of Feinstein’s great strengths is his ability to tell stories about his subjects, primarily coaches and athletes, with a great human touch and makes the reader that these are people with real issues, not just glamorous celebrities. While he does this at the beginning with coaches from all eight Ivy League schools, the items about the players are not as interesting and instead read more like clippings from press conferences.
Which leads to the second part that disappointed me – most of the book is a rehashing of the 2023 Ivy League football season complete with game descriptions, quotes and updated standings each week. While many times that is fine for a book of this nature, it isn’t the usual Feinstein style and for that, my satisfaction came up a little short.
But this doesn’t mean everything about the book was disappointing. The stories about the coaches mentioned earlier were great. Especially with the passing of Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens and the outpouring of support that came from all the Ivies. The dialogue about how many coaches in the league stay in their positions for long periods of time, no matter their records, was also good reading. Same goes for other passages that talked about the history of the league – some of which were interspersed with the 2023 game notes. Also, of course, no book on the Ivy League would be complete without mentioning the Harvard-Yale match called simple “The Game.” Although…here there are four references to the famous headline “Harvard beats Yale 29-29” but at least they make sense in their use and not just added to make the story juicier.
Overall, it was an okay read, but I would not recommend it to hardcore Feinstein fans like me. There just wasn’t enough of the material that makes him a great writer and instead it felt more like a product to just get out there and sell.
I wish to thank Hachette Books for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.
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