Recently my son and I attended a football game at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. We enjoyed the experience and going to a game at West Point is something every football fan should do once in their lifetime. It inspired me to try to find a book on the Army football program and I found this one. While I was hoping for more about the history of the program, nonetheless it was a decent read. Here is my review of "Team for America."
Title/Author:
“A Team for America: The
Army-Navy Game That Rallied a Nation at War” by Randy Roberts
Tags:
Football (American),
college, World War II, Army, Navy
Publish date:
November 29, 2011
Length:
264 pages
Rating:
3 1/2 of 5 stars (good)
Review:
The years of World War
II were certainly trying times for college athletics. Many of the potential
athletes that would play sports in college were fighting in one of the military
branches. The military academies were
losing some of their players early as course work and military training was
accelerated to get commissioned officers ready for combat duty quicker. This did affect the football teams at West
Point and Annapolis, but despite these issues, the two service academies had
some of their best seasons during this time.
The climactic game between them in this era was their meeting in 1944, which is
the subject of this book written by Randy Roberts. The focus in the book is on West Point, as
the book leads up to the big game with descriptions of how West Point was able
to hire coach Earl “Red” Blalik, what was done to recruit some of the top
athletes, and the overall mood of the campus.
That mood, despite the success of the football team, is mostly gloomy
and fatigued from war, much like the rest of the nation.
These are entertaining stories for the most part. There are also nice stories
about the two top stars for Army, Glenn Davis and Felix “Doc” Blanchard.
Davis’s comment about his speed, stating “God gave me that. I didn’t have to
work for it” was a nice little human touch in the story behind a legendary
player.
Descriptions of the game of football at the time are also well-written as the
brutality of the game is illustrated.
The story of All-American Robin Olds getting his teeth knocked out and how
he made sure the opponent who did so received his payback is quite vivid with
its detail. This was also the time when
the current T-formation of the quarterback receiving the ball on a direct snap
from center was introduce
d – by Army – and the early success of the formation
was well-researched and described.
Some war stories are interspersed in the book as well, and this was one of the
parts in which I felt the book was more difficult to read as it made the
narrative somewhat jumpy and it also was not easy to see the connection between
the war story and the football dialogue until well after the war story
ended. The one other problem I had with
the overall format of the book is that only 16 of the 264 pages on the
Nook-formatted book were about the actual game.
While this seems like it was enough, as it did not get too bogged down
with a play-by-play recap, it felt like the buildup to the game was far more
important to the book than the actual game.
This seemed to be completely opposite to what the subject of the book
would be.
Despite these issues, I enjoyed reading the book as it gives the reader a good
look at what the state of college football was in the early 1940’s. For readers who want to learn more about the
game at that time, or about that snippet of football history at West Point,
this book is one to read.
Book Format Read:
E-book (Nook)
Buying links:
