The Rise of Intercollegiate Football and Its Portrayal in American Popu

The spread out of Intercollegiate Football and Its Portrayal in American favourite LiteratureWith the success of the Merriwell literature, juvenile sport fiction became abundant. In all subsequent stories, the model for traditional juvenile sport fiction, even continuing today, is the historied Frank Merriwell (Oriard, 1982). As the Merriwell series dwindled to a halt in the 1910s, books began to dominate the world of childrens sport fiction. Oriard (1982) suggested the popularity of these books rose because the juvenile sports novel combined the natural process of the dime novels with the middle-class morality of the Alger (rags-to-riches) novel (p. 47). In 1912, the year Gilbert Patten retired as the author of the Merriwell stories, Owen hindquartersson published his childrens novel, Stover at Yale. Dink Stover looms as the hero of Johnsons novel, which follows young Dink from his freshman year to the beginning of his senior year at the illustrious Yale University. Johnsons nov el while mistakable to the Merriwell series, establishes a new era in juvenile sport literature that starts the maturation process of the collegiate athlete-hero.Many of Frank Merriwells challenges did occur on the playing field at Yale in a multitude of sports that included football, baseball, crew, and track. During most of these events, however, the precocious hero and his comrades usually solved a mystery or righted some wrong. In addition, Merriwell left college for a few years, and this respite from college life enabled the multifaceted young man to write a play, purchase a scrapper thoroughbred horse, and travel the world in his pursuit to stamp out all wrongdoing, all activities contrary to the ideals of amateurism. Stover receives the hero worship typical o... ...mith, R.A. (1988). Sports and Freedom The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics. New York, NY Oxford University Press.Smith, R.A. (1993). History of Amateurism in Mens Intercollegiate Athletics The Continuance of a 19th-Century Anachronism in America. QUEST. Vol. 45, pp. 430-447.Standish, B.L. (1900). Frank Merriwells Policy or, performing Columbia for Practice. TipTop Weekly. No. 238.Standish, B.L. (1901). Dick Merriwell at Fardale or, The Wonder of School. Tip Top Weekly. No. 291.Thelin, J.R. (1994). Games Colleges Play Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics. Baltimore John Hopkins University Press.Valenzi, K.D., Ed. (1990). Champion of Sport The Life and Times of Walter Camp, 1859-1925. Charlottesville, VA Howell Press, Inc.Watterson, J.S. (1988). Inventing Modern Football. American Heritage. Sept./Oct., pp. 102-113.