This syllabus outlines a course on the history of American football taught at Quinnipiac University. The course will trace the evolution of football from its origins in the 19th century to the present day. It will examine how technological changes, especially the rise of mass media like newspapers, films, television and video games, drove football's growth in popularity and transformed it into today's spectator sport. Students will analyze primary sources like books and films to understand football's relationship to culture, identity and health issues in athletes. Assessments include papers connecting course readings to the overarching narrative of football's development. The final paper requires students to analyze a work of literature or film in the context of football's historical trajectory.

1. JRN/SPS 362 – The Story of Football – Syllabus (v. 1.0 8/30/2021)
Three Academic Credits
Fall 2021
Quinnipiac University
Associate Professor Rich Hanley
Voice: 203.582.8439 / e-mail: rhanley@qu.edu
Office Hours: Zoom
Wednesdays, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. and by appointment.
https://quinnipiac.zoom.us/j/94348420555
Note: If the link is not working, launch Zoom and use the following Meeting ID: 943 4842
0555
Syllabus and Calendar
Please note: The Syllabus and Calendar are subject to change. Any changes will be
transmitted to students via email or an announcement in class or on Blackboard.
Course Description
This course traces the historical trajectory of American football and the coaches, players and
media portrayals that transformed the game from a 19th century collegiate test of manliness to
what it is today: a spectator sport of immense appeal at both the amateur and professional levels
whose popularity endures despite more than a century of concerns over the game’s sometimes
lethal and debilitating violence.
In short, football emerged as America’s most popular sport because it provided mass media with
the sustained content – and the critical narrative story elements such as winners, losers, and
heroes - it required. Even when the dominant media form shifted from paper to electronic and
later to digital, football adapted and thrived.
To be sure, we will cover the formation of college conferences, the professional leagues, the
stars, the coaches, the owners, and others who shaped the game as we view it today. We will also
show the historical trajectory of football to the game it is today and how innovation is as much a
part of the game as it is in means to distribute it across media platforms. But please note that this
is not a course on things that happened. We won’t discuss trivia and other distractions best left to
sports talk radio or Twitter.
The overarching question we will explore in this class is how the essential reality of football
stands today as it did in the 19th century despite the steady progression of technological means to
create, cover, distribute and consume its narrative: a violent game where real boys and men
subject themselves to persistent and ubiquitous violence and suffer because of it, often over their
lifetimes.

2. We will consider the multiple dimensions of culture – from art to religion – that run deep within
the genetic code of the game of football and is transmitted via media forms.
Essential Learning Outcomes
Students are required to read numerous texts, watch several films, write research papers, and
participate in class discussions to demonstrate their grasp of the material covered in class.
Students who successfully complete this course will:
● Acquire knowledge of football as an expression of regional and national American
identity – particularly masculine identity - and culture
● Identify major developments that changed the trajectory of football history in terms of
rules, strategies and tactics designed to make the game at once safer and more appealing
to a mass audience
● Understand the relationship between football and race, gender, sexuality, class, and
cultural identity
● Analyze the role of print media in driving the popularity of college football in the 19th
century
● Analyze the role of popular films in shaping the public perception of football as a heroic
enterprise in the first half of the 20th century
● Analyze the role of television in transforming football from sports spectacle to popular
entertainment in the second half of 20th century
● Interpret the role of film and fiction as literary instruments in the transmission of football
culture to mass audiences
● Identify the role of mass media in promoting the concept of the football hero in the
context of media-cultivated gender roles as portrayed in films, magazines, recordings,
and other platforms
● Engage works of criticism focusing on football and the game’s influence on community,
culture, and health
● Reflect on how the study of football history and media may inform their future
relationship to the game
Required Texts, Films and Music
There are many textual, video, and musical presentations available on Blackboard under Course
Materials for each section of the course. All materials marked as required must be read or viewed
and be used to inform required compositions for the class, including the final project at the end
of the semester. Other materials marked as supplemental may be read and viewed for additional
information for students who wish a deeper understanding of the game.
Assessment
Writing Assignments: 80%
Attendance & Participation: 20%
Please note that attendance is mandatory. A maximum of two unexcused absences is permitted.

3. Paper Writing Style
This class follows the MLA format in the composition of papers.
Final Paper
The assignment for the final paper is as follows:
Select a book or film from the list provided on Blackboard, or propose a text or film that interests
you, and write a 5-page paper on how it fits into the narrative of the history of football. Please
cite examples from assigned readings and films to place the work into the context of the firm
story line first established in the 19th century. Some of the works are critiques of football (i.e.,
North Dallas Forty) yet that critique can be interpreted within the context of football history as it
reveals the underlying concern with the way the players are treated even while media glorifies
their exploits.
This paper is due Dec. 17, 2021, at 11:59 p.m.
(Course Calendar Begins On Next Page)

4. JRN/SPS 362 – The Story of Football – Syllabus (v. 1.0 8/30/2021)
Three Academic Credits
Fall 2021
Quinnipiac University
Associate Professor Rich Hanley
Voice: 203.582.8439 / e-mail: rhanley@qu.edu
Office Hours: Zoom
Wednesdays, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. and by appointment.
https://quinnipiac.zoom.us/j/94348420555
Note: If the link is not working, launch Zoom and use the following Meeting ID: 943 4842
0555
FIRST QUARTER: August 30 – September 15
From the Quads to the Great War: How College Football Captured the Imagination (1869-1919)
College football grew exponentially in popularity between its origins as a version of rugby on
collegiate grounds in the 1870s and the eve of the media-rich 1920s. Not even calls to ban the
game at the turn of the century and a world war could stop the ever-growing popularity of the
game as an autumnal spectacle and maker of heroic figures, both real (Jim Thorpe) and imagined
(Frank Merriwell). In short, football served as proxy for the vanishing western frontier.
And the person who served as sheriff of this frontier was Walter Camp, of Yale, who shaped the
game and transformed it into spectacle just as the country and the mass print media that served it
hungered for an autumnal sports ritual.
Reading/Watching: See Blackboard Course Materials for the First Quarter
Paper: Using the readings marked as required and lectures, write a five-page paper exploring the
role of Walter Camp in developing and popularizing football as an expression of manliness in
late 19th century and early 20th century America. Please note how Camp popularized the game
through books – non-fiction and fiction - and magazine articles as part of his effort to develop
masculine identity, one that persists into the 21st century.
Paper due September 20 at 11:59 p.m.
SECOND QUARTER: Sept. 20 – Oct. 6
The Gipper, the Horsemen, the Ghost, and the NFL: Mythmaking in Action (1920-1957)
The sharp growth of the movies, audio recordings and radio in the roaring 1920s and 1930s
created a market for heroes and their exploits, and football provided the tableau on which these

5. legends roamed. The story of Knute Rockne and others reflect the convergence of these new
media forms and the unique nature of football to adapt to changing national and regional desires
– and technological developments amid renewed calls for reform in the college game.
Yet Rockne’s lasting influence rests in the appearance of the game, in mythology. It turned out
that the most influential coach of this period whose work influenced succeeding generations of
coaches – including Tom Landry and Bill Belichick, among others - transformed the game with
stunning innovations.
The first non-fiction national football hero emerged in Red Grange of Illinois, who electrified the
sport as no other figure had up to the point and whose decision to play in the NFL gave the
league much-needed credibility.
Simultaneously, and despite sharp protests from college coaches, the pro game emerged to create
another layer of popularity that would compete with baseball as the national obsession in terms
of popularity and cultural significance throughout the United States.
Amid the rapid growth of football’s popularity, however, the game’s dark side began to emerge
in literature that moved from juvenile celebrations of heroics to adult themes of male toxicity.
What’s more, college football’s role as entertainment rather than as an educational experience
generated calls to remove the game from campus life, calls that eventually led the game’s
founding institutions in the east to back off from national prominence in the game.
Reading/Watching: See Blackboard Course Materials for the Second Quarter
Paper: Write a five-page paper on the theme of appearance versus reality in the presentation of
football as the subject of literature, non-fiction, and movies from the turn of the century through
the 1940s, noting, for example, the absence of African American players from the films. Also,
pay attention to the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald in “The Bowl” and how it shows the college
football player in a more adult light relative to the way Walter Camp portrayed football heroes in
his books and articles as discussed in the first quarter of class. Also note the absurd notion as
presented in films that an undersized player with no athletic skills whatsoever could become a
football hero but do so in the context of a true football star in Red Grange.
Paper due Oct. 11 at 11:59 p.m.
THIRD QUARTER: Oct. 11 – Nov. 4
Television & Football: America’s Medium, America’s Game (1958-1980)
The decades of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s could not have been more culturally distinct and
saddled with confusion and contentious debate, often along regional and generational lines. Yet
pro football commanded collective social attention as live TV broadcasts and the cinematic
techniques of NFL Films revealed the immediacy, reality, and inner artistry of violence in color
and in slow-motion, backed by literary narratives. The Super Bowl emerged as the perfect

6. spectacle, refined, and presented for a global television audience. It also became the benchmark
for pro football dynasties.
At the same time, college football sought refuge in its traditions, particularly in the South where
schools maintained segregated teams despite gains by the civil rights movement in politics.
Critics, many of whom played the game, emerged during this period, some writing tell-all books
that revealed the innermost secrets of the game that shocked the public but did not deter people
from watching football in ever-increasing numbers.
At the center of this period stand two figures who could not have been more different: Vince
Lombardi and Joe Namath. Lombardi represented the old order of the game rooted in tradition
and deference to authority, while Namath signified the expansion of the football hero template
into the wider realm of pop culture celebrity in the television age. And there was Tom Landry
and others like him who turned out to be pioneers of the 21st century game with sophisticated,
computer-assisted tools that turned the game into a technological wonderland for both players
and fans.
Reading/Watching: See Blackboard Course Materials for the Third Quarter
Paper: Write a five-page paper on the link between television and the emergence of football as an
epic American spectacle in the 1950s-1970s that cut across demographic lines, with the older
generation revering Lombardi and Unitas while the younger generation found Joe Namath and
other stars like him appealing to their world view. Key points to consider in framing the paper to
show how the pro game conquered America and owned one day - Sunday - and one night -
Monday - of the week:
1. How Tom Landry and the Dallas Cowboys on the field and Roone Arledge and other TV
executives off the field reflected the technological sensibility that permeated both the game and
how it was televised, even though TV continue the role of focusing on 19th century-era gender
roles.
2. How integration of southern football made it possible for the NFL to become truly a national
league.
3. How NFL Films created a visual and audio mythology that persists to this day and how
television provided the platform for a culture of celebrity to emerge from the game despite
persistent critiques by former players and observers that underscored the increased violence in
the game.
4. How rule changes amplified the game's appeal and inexorable movement toward an open,
pass-oriented structure.
5. How the emergence of the AFL as a viable alternative to the NFL created conditions for a
merger that led to the creation of the Super Bowl, which has evolved into a de facto national
holiday.
The paper is due Nov. 13 at 11:59 p.m.
.

7. FOURTH QUARTER: Nov. 8 – Dec. 8
Money & Madness (1981-Present)
From the 1980s through the 2000s, both college and pro football adapted the game’s rules to
meet the demands of television and emerging technologies such as video games. As a result,
football thrived as never before. Most of the top shows on television, for example, at football
games, and video game enthusiasts wait in anxious anticipation each year for the release of the
latest Madden game. College football became a television programming jewel, with ESPN
dictating – directly or indirectly – conference alignment, bowl games and playoffs.
Yet in the shadows of the power and glory of the billions of dollars and tens of millions of fans
are thousands of former players who are physically and cognitively disabled from playing. Is it
worth it?
Reading/Watching: See Blackboard Course Materials for the First Quarter
Paper: Write a 5-page paper that explores whether players are paying too high a price for making
us happy as spectators. Use examples of how the rules have been historically modified to make
the game safer over time while maintaining the game’s appeal to the audience, particularly for
television. Please reference in detail how the game’s mythology and the personal experiences of
players serve to support the game even in the face of withering criticism. Also, make note of the
pathologies associated with the game, including drug addiction and concussions.
Paper due Dec. 13 at 11:59 p.m.