While investigating how the current Big Ten Conference came to include Michigan State and not other suitors including Pittsburgh and Nebraska, this work traces the sometimes shadowy history of college football. It's a story of intrigue, lying, timing, friendships made and broken along with costly arousing outbursts, all based on extensive and detailed research.David Young is a practicing physician in Holland, Michigan. He grew up in East Lansing. While attending Notre Dame in the mid 1970s, his next door neighbor, Jack Breslin, shared a story with him about the special relationship between Michigan State and the University of Notre Dame. The 1946 Spartan graduate and executive vice president of MSU noted that the Irish administration had played a prominent role in Michigan State College's evolution into a major land-grant research institution. It all had to do with aiding a Spartan application for membership in the "Western Conference" during the late 1940s. Mr. Breslin also offered comment on the University of Michigan's role in that transition. Unfortunately, while walking back to the Yardboy to finish mowing his lawn, those words were muffled by the idling engine. "And if Michigan had its way...."Three decades later, Dr. Young decided to investigate what his alma mater did to assist Michigan State's grand vision as crafted by a far-sighted president. He also wanted to find out what Breslin intended to say about the Wolverine's involvement in the application process. What he discovered, hidden within the stacks of 13 university archives, has now dispelled a popular myth. In its place, the amateur historian reveals the true story--an extensively cited account of John Hannah's quest for membership in the Big Nine and Michigan Law Professor Ralph Aigler's obsession with impeding that relentless pursuit. Intertwined in the complex tale are the fascinating roles played by two commissioners as well as various leaders at Minnesota, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Northwestern, Purdue, Pittsburgh and the University of Chicago.Though this account focuses on a unique intrastate rivalry, the book remains a must read for anyone interested in the evolution of the modern game of college football. And for alumni/fans of the many schools involved with either aiding or hindering Hannah's quest, the story will explore what now appears to be a very controversial decision in May of 1949 to accept Michigan State College into the Western Conference.

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.

In this in-depth look at the heated debates over paying college athletes, Ronald A. Smith starts at the beginning: the first intercollegiate athletics competition—a crew regatta between Harvard and Yale—in 1852, when both teams received an all-expenses-paid vacation from a railroad magnate. This striking opening sets Smith on the path of a story filled with paradoxes and hypocrisies that plays out on the field, in meeting rooms, and in courtrooms—and that ultimately reveals that any insistence on amateurism is invalid, because these athletes have always been paid, one way or another. From that first contest to athletes’ attempts to unionize and California’s 2019 Fair Pay to Play Act, Smith shows that, throughout the decades, undercover payments, hiring professional coaches, and breaking the NCAA’s rules on athletic scholarships have always been part of the game. He explores how the regulation of male and female student-athletes has shifted; how class, race, and gender played a role in these transitions; and how the case for amateurism evolved from a moral argument to one concerned with financially and legally protecting college sports and the NCAA. Timely and thought-provoking, The Myth of the Amateur is essential reading for college sports fans and scholars.

100 Things Michigan State Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the ultimate resource guide for true fans of Michigan State football and men's basketball. Whether a die-hard booster from the days of Jumpin' Johnny Green or a new supporter of football coach Mark Dantonio, fans will value these essential pieces of Michigan State football and basketball knowledge and trivia, as well as all the must-do activities, that have been ranked from 1 to 100, providing an entertaining and easy-to-follow checklist for Spartan supporters to progress on their way to fan superstardom. It is now updated to include the Michigan State's recent successes.

The modern city of East Lansing, Michigan is a thriving community of 46,000 people located just a few miles from the state capital building in Lansing. Originally a crossroads of Indian trails and encampments, the first modern development at the site was the Agriculture College of the State of Michigan. Founded in 1855, it later became Michigan State University. A surrounding community soon sprang up as a result of the college's establishment and growth. First named Collegeville, this community organized, petitioned for, and received a city charter from the state in 1907. The city and the college still share a symbiotic relationship, but they have developed into two diverse and distinct communities. This pictorial history presents images of the town as it originated and grew, in less than 100 years, into one of Michigan's most interesting cities.

When African-American Quarterback Jimmy Raye enrolled at Michigan State University in 1964, he was much more than a student athlete: he was part of a groundbreaking movement that changed college football forever. The Michigan State team with a progressive head coach, a pioneer black quarterback, and the first fully integrated roster in college football is the subject of this engrossing new book by award-winning author Tom Shanahan.Michigan State was a world away from Raye's hometown of Fayetteville, N.C. -- both in miles and culture. In his junior season in 1966, Raye was Michigan State's first black starting quarterback and the first black quarterback from the South to win a national title. The story of Raye's journey, as well as those of his Spartan teammates and coach Duffy Daugherty, is told in Raye of Light: the first book to fully explain Duffy Daugherty's Underground Railroad and its impact on college football.

The trash that was abandoned by the cultivation clans had accidentally saved a wolf, and now he had an extra person. This man was sometimes wolf, sometimes cold and merciless; he was trash, sometimes pure, sometimes brave and decisive. Other people might not be able to understand the beauty of a cauldron, but there was an indescribable sadness to it.