The Medicos, the Purple Hurricane, the Seceders- all South Carolina football mascots that long ago drifted into history. From as early as 1889, college football began to take hold of South Carolina. The fans of the state's first intercollegiate game could hardly have foreseen how it would steadily grow from a competition between amateurs into tightly organized teams with well-paid coaches and demanding alumni, all with a passionate desire to win. This volume goes beyond Clemson and Carolina to trace the history of college teams from all over the state, including Wofford, Furman, SC State, Presbyterian College, Erskine, Claflin, The Citadel, MUSC, the College of Charleston, Newberry College, Benedict College and Allen University. Join museum curator Fritz Hamer and longtime South Carolina high school football coach John Daye as they celebrate the state's most notable coaches, players and rivalries, as well as the many unsung heroes who have helped to make the sport a statewide obsession.

This volume provides unique insight into how American colleges and universities have been significantly impacted and shaped by college football, and considers how U.S. sports culture more generally has intersected with broader institutional and educational issues. By documenting events from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including protests, legal battles, and policy reforms which were centred around college sports, this distinctive volume illustrates how football has catalyzed broader controversies and progress relating to race and diversity, commercialization, corruption, and reform in higher education. Relying foremost on primary archival material, chapters illustrate the continued cultural, social, and economic themes and impacts of college athletics on U.S. higher education and campus life today. This text will benefit researchers, graduate students, and academics in the fields of higher education, as well as the history of education and sport more broadly. Those interested in the sociology of education and the politics of sport will also enjoy this volume.

"Since the earliest days of football, the Gamecocks have helped make the sport a favorite in the Palmetto State. In the early 1900s, the team joined many other schools banning college football because of the injuries and deaths nationwide. Martha Williams Brice donated $2.75 million from her estate to help bring about an aggressive and overdue expansion. After executing one dazzling play after another and surviving three down-to-the-wire games in ACC play, the Gamecocks wont their first and only conference championship in 1969. Author David Caraviello offers a behind-the-scenes look at Gamecock football history." --

Black college football began during the nadir of African American life after the Civil War. The first game occurred in 1892, a little less than four years before the Supreme Court ruled segregation legal in Plessy v. Ferguson. In spite of Jim Crow segregation, Black colleges produced some of the best football programs in the country. They mentored young men who became teachers, preachers, lawyers, and doctors--not to mention many other professions--and transformed Black communities. But when higher education was integrated, the programs faced existential challenges as predominately white institutions steadily set about recruiting their student athletes and hiring their coaches. Blood, Sweat, and Tears explores the legacy of Black college football, with Florida A&M's Jake Gaither as its central character, one of the most successful coaches in its history. A paradoxical figure, Gaither led one of the most respected Black college football programs, yet many questioned his loyalties during the height of the civil rights movement. Among the first broad-based histories of Black college athletics, Derrick E. White's sweeping story complicates the heroic narrative of integration and grapples with the complexities and contradictions of one of the most important sources of Black pride in the twentieth century.

In this compellingly argued and deeply personal book, respected sports historian Michael Oriard--who was himself a former second-team All-American at Notre Dame--explores a wide range of trends that have changed the face of big-time college football and transformed the role of the student-athlete. Oriard considers such issues as the politicizati...