The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation | 
 enlarge | Author: Sally Jenkins
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 63684
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0385519877
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.332630974843
EAN: 9780385519878
ASIN: 0385519877
Publication Date: May 8, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | Hardcover - The Real All Americans: The Team that Changed a Game, a People, a Nation (Random House Large Print (Cloth/Paper)) | | • | Audio CD - The Real All Americans: The Team that Changed a Game, a People, a Nation | | • | Audio Download - The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation (Unabridged) | | • | Audio Download - The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation | | • | Kindle Edition - The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation |
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Product Description
Sally Jenkins, bestselling co-author of It's Not About the Bike, revives a forgotten piece of history in The Real All Americans. In doing so, she has crafted a truly inspirational story about a Native American football team that is as much about football as Lance Armstrong's book was about a bike.
If you’d guess that Yale or Harvard ruled the college gridiron in 1911 and 1912, you’d be wrong. The most popular team belonged to an institution called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Its story begins with Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt, a fierce abolitionist who believed that Native Americans deserved a place in American society. In 1879, Pratt made a treacherous journey to the Dakota Territory to recruit Carlisle’s first students.
Years later, three students approached Pratt with the notion of forming a football team. Pratt liked the idea, and in less than twenty years the Carlisle football team was defeating their Ivy League opponents and in the process changing the way the game was played.
Sally Jenkins gives this story of unlikely champions a breathtaking immediacy. We see the legendary Jim Thorpe kicking a winning field goal, watch an injured Dwight D. Eisenhower limping off the field, and follow the glorious rise of Coach Glenn “Pop” Warner as well as his unexpected fall from grace.
The Real All Americans is about the end of a culture and the birth of a game that has thrilled Americans for generations. It is an inspiring reminder of the extraordinary things that can be achieved when we set aside our differences and embrace a common purpose.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
 The Real Americans April 25, 2008
"The Real Americans" is a well written and researched book. I have always wondered about the beginings of Carlisle. I was would have like to see more about the students who attended. It was very sparce on details about the ending of the Carlisle a school. The young girls who atttended the school, what were their accomplishments. Not enough pictures of the students and Jim Thorpe. I was looking for more of the latter. As an overall review of the book, I found it very interesting and worth the reading time.
 Three intertwined books... April 13, 2008
This is actually three intertwined books. It begins with a history of the later stages of the Indian Wars in the American West and the slow steady marginalization of the Indians that followed. It then details the formation and history of the Carlisle Indian School, which was an important part of efforts to "civilize" the Indians. Finally, it follows the early history of football, mostly by relating the history of one of the most remarkable football teams of all, the Carlisle Indians.
It would be remarkable enough to do justice to any of those subjects in one short book, but the author manages to seamlessly intertwine all three in a page-turner of a narrative. Along the way, she paints detailed portraits of many of the complicated people who created the history.
The cumulative result is a thoroughly enjoyable book that is at the same time vitally important. An amazing number of issues dealt with in the book-- including the manner in which the US deals with its Native American peoples, the proper role of football at American colleges, and the nature of true amateurism in athletics-- have not been resolved even today, nearly a hundred years after the events related here.
This is a remarkable book that will more than justify the time taken to read it.
Come for the Football. Stay for the History. March 3, 2008
As a guy rule of thumb, when your wife says "I think you should read this book about football", it's a good idea to listen to her. My wife started recommending this book after the first chapter, and I was happy when she finally turned it over to me. Sally Jenkins' "The Real All Americans" is by turns fascinating, entertaining, and moving.
Anyone who has ever played football is likely to enjoy the description of the early stages of the game. It is amazing how brutal it could be, and how little regard there was for the "rules" such as they were, of the day. The phrase "if you're not cheating, you're not trying" comes to mind.
Ever wonder why we have "Pop Warner" football? Well, here is Warner in all of his glory. He does not come off as a particularly nice person, but as an innovator and a competitor, he has few peers. He took control of the speedy-but-undersized Carlisle Indian School football team in an era when brute force was what won football games, and he created a winning program by emphasizing speed, passing, and misdirection. My favorite anecdote? In order to create confusion, prior to a Carlisle game against Harvard he had players sew football-shaped patches onto their uniforms. In response, the Harvard coach had the balls painted the same crimson color of his team's jerseys. In a compromise, the patches and colored balls were both removed.
The book does more than just revisit football's roots. It is a fascinating history of the aftermath of the United States' western expansion. The director of Carlisle, LTC Richard Pratt, comes of as stern but fair, with the best interests (as he saw them) of his students at heart. He was a firm believer that the conquered tribes would fare best if assimilated into larger American society. The Carlisle Indian School was explicitly set up to remove children from their parents and their tribes, separate them from their heritage, and indoctrinate them into America. It was at best a mixed success, and it ultimately failed after Pratt left. For many, myself included, this chapter was missing from our history books. Jenkins' retelling is riveting and at times poignant.
So, think of this as two books for the price of one. If you are a fan of sport, you'll think the chapters on football are a hoot. If you enjoy American history, even in one of its darker moments, the descriptions of the moral dilemma facing the country and the tribes will fascinate you. Either way this book will be well worth the read.
5 stars.
Great Book! February 26, 2008
This book was highly entertaning. It tells the story of the first Indian football team. How they got started (the book tells of fights between the Indains and the government), tells of their first games and thier last. Every Football fan should read this book!
Indian history, school history, football history... November 26, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
"The Game, like the country in which is was invented, was a rough, bastardized thing that jumped out of the mud." Thus opens Sally Jenkins' impressive "The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed A Game, A People, A Nation. While primarily about the football team from The Carlisle Indian Industrial School (CIIS) in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the author also covers the end of the Indian "era," the creation of CIIS by Captain Richard Henry Pratt, and the development of football as a college sport.
Jenkins spends the first 100 pages in detailing the events leading up to the creation of Carlisle's football team. Captain Pratt was stationed in Indian Territory after the Civil War. Given a command of 20 Buffalo Soldiers and 25 Cherokee scouts, Pratt was astounded to discover that the Indians were intelligent and civilized and not "atrocious aborigines." After dealing with Indians as both scouts and prisoners, he came to the conclusion that the only way to solve the Indian problem was through education. With some monetary assistance from the government, he single-handedly founded the CIIS.
Soon after the school opened, football began taking off on college campuses. Ironically,
"the rising popularity of football had closely followed the ebbing of the frontier wars. It was as though America, at a loss for what to do with itself once the wilderness was subdued, had hit on football as the answer." Pratt reluctantly let the Indians form a team. Although always outnumbered, outmanned and undersized, with the help of innovative coach Glenn "Pop" Warner, they were soon playing competitively with the best teams in the nation. "Under Warner's creative tutelage, they had an astounding array of trick plays, reverses, end-arounds, flea flickers, and spirals through the air." They started when football was in its infancy--there was little equipment, no formal officiating, no overt coaching during games, a different scoring system, no passing, a few dozens deaths each year, and lots of cheating and violence. The Indians, with their slight size, skilled passing and great speed eventually changed the way football was played. After one of their best seasons in 1912, the "New York Times" wrote that the football played by Carlisle was "the most perfect brand of football ever seen in America."
Carlisle is probably best remembered as the alma mater of Jim Thorpe. He was originally a track star before becoming a football player. In fact, Pop Warner was reluctant to have Thorpe join the team, thinking he was much too scrawny and not wanting to lose a track athlete (Warner coached both sports). It was Warner who took Thorpe to the Olympics in Stockholm where he came home a champion.
Jenkins provides a well-rounded and fascinating account that explains how these historical events all converged on this tiny campus in Carlisle, PA. The only thing I think is lacking in The Real All Americans is an index.
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