Big Ten football fans pack gridiron cathedrals that hold up to 100,000 spectators. The conference's fourteen member schools share a broadcast network and a 2016 media deal worth $2.64 billion. This cultural and financial colossus grew out of a modest 1895 meeting that focused on football's brutality and encroaching professionalism in the game. Winton U. Solberg explores the relationship between higher education and collegiate football in the Big Ten's first fifty years. This formative era saw debates over eligibility and amateurism roil the sport. In particular, faculty concerned with academics clashed with coaches, university presidents, and others who played to win. Solberg follows the conference's successful early efforts to put the best interests of institutions and athletes first. Yet, as he shows, commercial concerns undid such work after World War I as sports increasingly eclipsed academics. By the 1940s, the Big Ten's impact on American sports was undeniable. It had shaped the development of intercollegiate athletics and college football nationwide while serving as a model for other athletic conferences.

Profiles the history and individual teams of the Big Ten football conference.

From New York Times bestselling author and Michigan football expert John Back, an analysis of the state of college football: Why we love the game, what is at risk, and the fight to save it. In search of the sport’s old ideals amid the roaring flood of hypocrisy and greed, bestselling author John U. Bacon embedded himself in four college football programs—Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Northwestern—and captured the oldest, biggest, most storied league, the Big Ten, at its tipping point. He sat in as coaches dissected game film, he ate dinner at training tables, and he listened in locker rooms. He talked with tailgating fans and college presidents, and he spent months in the company of the gifted young athletes who play the game. Fourth and Long reveals intimate scenes behind closed doors, from a team’s angry face-off with their athletic director to a defensive lineman acing his master’s exams in theoretical math. It captures the private moment when coach Urban Meyer earned the devotion of Ohio State’s Buckeyes on their way to a perfect season. It shows Michigan’s athletic department endangering the very traditions that distinguish the college game from all others. And it re-creates the euphoria of the Northwestern Wildcats winning their first bowl game in decades. Most unforgettably, Fourth and Long finds what the national media missed in the ugly aftermath of Penn State’s tragic scandal: the unheralded story of players who joined forces with Coach Bill O’Brien to save the university’s treasured program—and with it, a piece of the game’s soul. This is the work of a writer in love with an old game—a game he sees at the precipice. Bacon’s deep knowledge of sports history and his sensitivity to the tribal subcultures of the college game power this elegy to a beloved and endangered American institution.

Have you ever hesitated when choosing between I or me? Have you had trouble figuring out tricky pronouns like who or whom? What about those always-troublesome commas-do they go before or after the quotation marks? If you're anything like the rest of us, you struggle with these age-old grammatical issues. In this practical and easy-to-understand handbook, Dr. William B. Bradshaw identifies the ten most common errors in English grammar and helps you to recognize and correct these mistakes, enabling you to write and speak with greater clarity in your personal and professional life. The Big Ten of Grammar is the perfect guide for students, teachers, and professionals to use in brushing up on their grammar.

The evolution of a brand is essential in order for the brand to remain competitive, especially for intercollegiate athletic conferences. Specifically, the Big Ten Conference was created in January of 1895 when leaders from eight universities met in Chicago to set regulations and standards for their institutions. The regulations, and ultimately the foundation for the Big Tens brand, were focused on the importance of academics and athletics. Over the years, the Big Ten established a set of common attributes between the members and became one of the power five conferences. Originally, the institutions were all large research universities located in the Midwest that emphasized the importance of athletics and academics. Through three rounds of expansion and the creation of brand extensions, such at the Big Ten Network (BTN), the Big Ten brand has evolved over time and created a new set of attributes. The Big Ten currently has 14 member institutions and has expanded outside of the Midwestern region and towards the East coast to gain market share and expand their footprint. With these changes, it seems the Big Tens focus has shifted away from academics and more towards generating revenue for the athletic programs through media contracts and the BTN. It is clear that the Big Ten has evolved to remain competitive, but it is important that the conference continues to consider its fans perception of the brand with all these changes.