Title: Setting the Stage: The Early Days of Auburn Football
Author: Neal Whitt
Publisher: BookBaby
ISBN: 978-1667863757
Pages: 368
Genre: Nonfiction / Sports History
Reviewer: Tony Espinoza
Hollywood Book Reviews
For those who have the privilege of going to college or a university, they know that there is one thing that overtakes an entire campus when it comes to sports, and that is school spirit or school pride. That occurs when students and faculty alike come together to celebrate and cheer on one team or another for a college in an effort to support that team through their latest event. Yet oftentimes people take for granted that these teams will always exist and rarely take the time to explore how these teams came to be in the first place.
The history of Auburn Football, for example, is greatly explored in author Neal Whitt’s Setting the Stage: The Early Days of Auburn Football. The book goes in depth to explore the foundations of Auburn as a college, from the days leading up to the CIvil War and the school’s survival at a time when many colleges were destroyed during the war, to the school’s financial struggles and how defying religious leaders fears about the sport allowed the school to bring football to the school grounds and revitalized the campus as a whole.
A truly engaging and memorable read, the author does such a great job of utilizing imagery to bring both history and the Alabama setting to life – both in the past and present day. The amount of detail the author was able to bring to the book is incredible, beginning the book with a vivid account of the college gameday experience in the modern day that comments on the value and ritual which college football has become to Southern communities. Then the outline and detail that the author gives to the complete history of Auburn as an educational institution and how the Civil War played a role in that development was so outstanding and eye-opening to read as it showcases just how world events can change the course of smaller communities like this as well.
Readers who enjoy nonfiction books, especially those that combine history driven stories with sports commentary and specifically football related trivia and history, will be enthralled with the author’s work in this book. The insight into the fight that occurred to get the college football program started was so interesting, as people take for granted how beloved the sport is today in the modern world, and yet back then school alumni and religious leaders alike spoke out against the development of the program, and the way this fight would redefine not only the sport but Auburn University as a whole was profoundly insightful. A must-read for every football fan who cherishes the roots of the game’s greatest rivalries and triumphs.