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"War As They Knew It"

51w1vwynfcl__sx126_pc41100_sh20_In his new book, War As They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time of Unrest, Michael Rosenberg describes how the intense rivalry between Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes and Michigan coach Bo Schembechler during the sixties and seventies reached far beyond the football field. Only A Game's Karen Given comments.

  Can one book really bring together such diverse issues as the Vietnam War, gender inequality, campus race relations, the college football obsessions of two sitting presidents and the benefits of the wishbone vs. the I offense?  It can, and Michael Rosenberg proves it in his new book, War As They Knew It:  Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time of Unrest. Rosenberg describes how America’s greatest college football rivalry reached all the way to the White House, and how its figureheads reacted to the turbulent political climate of the 1960s. Ohio State coach Woody Hayes was a Patton-obsessed, Vietnam war supporter who refused to acknowledge the changing times of the sixties and seventies.  University of Michigan coach Bo Schembechler brought big-time football to a campus overrun by student strikes, campus sit-ins, and anti-war revolutionaries.  Both were prone to temper tantrums, both real and theatrical, and lobbied against equal funding for women in sports. Readers of War As They Knew It might not agree with Hayes and Schembechler’s politics.  They might not even care about their tactics on the football field.  But, by the end, they’ll probably grow to admire these two football coaches.  And, in that respect, Rosenberg succeeds.

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