Ivy League Autumns: An Illustrated History of College Football's Grand Old Rivalries

American college football as it is played today, more rugby-style than soccer-style, was a product of Harvard, and the game remained the preserve of Ivy League schools for 50 years, although the first game, in 1869, involved non-Ivy Rutgers versus Princeton. During the years of their supremacy, the prestigious colleges of the Northeast produced such legendary figures as Glenn (Pop) Warner, John Heisman, Walter Camp and Amos Alonzo Stagg. But after WWI, attention gradually shifted to Midwestern and Southern schools, and, after WWII, the Ivies started to de-emphasize the sport, prohibiting spring practice and postseason play in 1952. In 1982, the major football powers froze the Ivies out of major television revenues, in effect banning them from Division I-A, where the TV money went. New York Times sportswriter Goldstein offers a nostalgic, lively history of the Ivy League, despite the decline in the caliber of play in the past 70 years. And he writes with a sense of fun, as when he shows how the Harvard Crimson was wont to report the games: ""Harvard beats Yale, 29-29."" (Sept.)