Great Subject...Poor Execution
While there are many who feel it's not football if its not played indoors and for millions of dollars, I am inclined to prefer college football, particulary the Ivy League. The history of college football is the history of the Ivy League schools, and it is a riveting and fascinating history. Too bad that this book is so poorly written that it hard to find. It has its moments when you get lost in the history you're reading, but then you're awoken sharply by a mistake - no, not a factual mistake (although it has some of those) but simply a gramatical mistake, or a spelling mistake, or a word where it shouldn't be, or a word missing. Normally I wouldn't care, but the frequency with which I was annoyed by these mistakes was too much to overcome. The material is good, but the author and publisher bring it down.
Potentially Great history Ruined by Sloppy Editing
This could well have been not only the definitive history of the Ivy League, but also one of the seminal works on the subject of football. The history of football by necessity goes through the Ivy League and the intrigues among Princeton, Harvard and Yale were to affect the college game for years and decades to come.
The Ivies have always been an enigma, an asterisk on the history of college football. Once boasting the most dominant teams in the country, the Ivies haven't boasted a national champion since Cornell in 1939. Finally, they were demoted by the NCAA to its Division I-AA in the late 70s. There would be no more national glory, and football became just another thing to do in the autumn, instead of being an obsession, which it is at Division 1-A colleges.
Bernstein does an excellent job of narrating the history of the Ivies. Every school is included, and there are loads of anecdotal sidelights that will delight the reader. The book is also thoroughly researched and is marked by a lively style not often found in university press publications.
Then why do I say that this could have been the definitive history of the Ivy League? One word: editing. One would naturally take for granted that a book from a university press would be well-edited, and a book from a press of the University of Pennsylvania being such should be a no-brainer. But the book is spoiled by numerous errors, errors that could have been caught by an editor's sharp eye. Other reviewers have pointed out some of the more outrageous errors as pertains to football, but I give you the most egregious of all:
"In many ways, the teens were a decade of Ivy prominence. Both presidential elections were all-Ivy affairs: Theodore Roosevelt defeated Woodrow Wilson and William Howard Taft in 1912, and Wilson beat Charles Evans Hughes in 1916." (p. 95)
HOW'S THAT AGAIN? ROOSEVELT DEFEATED WILSON IN 1912?? This will come as some news to American Historians. Obviously, history is not a core curriculum course of the University of Pennsylvania these days. I don't blame the author (though he should know better, being a graduate of Princeton), I blame the editors. They're the ones who are supposed to catch these mistakes. I admit that a mistake concerning football history can slip by, but this is a basic fact of American history that slipped right past. Shame on the editors.
Nonetheless, I do recommend the book for its strengths and its well-written narrative and lively style. Perhaps the mistakes can be corrected for the paperback edition.
Interesting, but needs a thorough editing; too many mistakes
Mark F. Bernstein's history of Ivy League football is generally interesting, though it doesn't offer a lot of new material. The bibliography is fascinating. Most problematic however, is the proliferation of mistakes, sometimes self-corrected later. A good editor should have caught these. Consider the following:1) On page 199, Mr. Bernstein implies that Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, and Cornell dropped Pennsylvania from their schedules in 1951 and 1952. In fact, Pennsylvania played all of these teams in both of those seasons and the author even refers to the 1951 Princeton-Penn contest on page 209. 2) On page 257, the author writes that "(Penn coach Jerry) Berndt continued to win, claiming a share of still another Ivy title in 1988, with Cornell....". However, this is not correct as Berndt left Pennsylvania after the 1985 season, which the author correctly indicates on page 258. 3) On page 242, and again on page 280, Penn receiving legend Don Clune, is referred to as Don McClune. 4) There is no mention of Frank Riepl's miracle kickoff return for Pennsylvania against Notre Dame in 1955, Coach Ron Rogerson of Princeton's untimely death in 1986, Brown is continually called the "Bears" when their nickname was the "Bruins" until recently, and I swear, somewhere in the book Bob Blackman is called Bob Blackmun. All in all, it's a good book with a decent balance of coverage of each of the eight teams, though Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Penn get by far the most attention. The beginning takes a bit to get through as well and of course, please check the facts, ma'am.
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