College Sports Traditions
Picking Up Butch, Silent Night, and Hundreds of Others
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- USD 59.99
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- USD 59.99
Descripción editorial
Every year since 1961, football and basketball players at Middlebury College in Vermont pick up their wheelchair-bound fan, Butch, and bring him to the stadium sidelines to watch their games. At John Brown University, the volleyball team distributes candy to fans before each match. For years, fans attending a University of Maryland football game rubbed the bronze statue of their terrapin mascot, Testudo. Traditions like these are visible statements of school loyalty, and they are part of why college sports are unforgettable.
College Sports Traditions: Picking Up Butch, Silent Night, and Hundreds of Others details not only the well-known traditions of major universities, but also the obscure customs of smaller schools. Approximately 1,200 traditions are captured, covering almost every college sport. It depicts such traditions as The Ohio State University’s “Script Ohio,” University of Kansas’s “Waving the Wheat,” Linfield College’s “End Zone Couches,” and even a list of traditions that involve streaking. The wide variety of traditions covered in this book are grouped thematically, including:
• Before the game
• During the game
• After a score
• After the game
• Mascot traditions
• Preseason traditions
• Traditions probably not university sanctioned
• Rivalries
• Yells, cheers, and chants
From the crazy and eccentric to the touching and meaningful, these traditions connect fans and athletes across generations. The first of its kind, this comprehensive volume encompasses hundreds of universities and colleges throughout the U.S. Featuring 75 photos that bring many of these events to life, College Sports Traditions will be an entertaining read for every sports fan.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pop culture meets reference in this list-like book that aims to showcase school spirit and athletic camaraderie through college sport traditions of all kinds. According to the authors, all colleges and universities were invited to submit a variety of sports traditions. The categories include traditions before and after a game, after a score, annual ones, those involving bands and music, plus a myriad compilation of trivia. There are mascots, rivalries, venues, cheers, plus a chapter entitled "Traditions Probably Not University Sanctioned." The way the book is organized encourages a flip-and-choose style of reading; otherwise, the all-inclusive content in each chapter gets repetitive particularly in the grouping of "entrance" traditions (how teams enter the field) where routines range from shaking hands with the media to doing push-ups. Other chapters offer a more interesting and sometimes surprising variety we learn that at University of Washington basketball games, fans sing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and at Murray State University, "local grandmothers" send cakes to players on their birthdays. Rivalries include a traveling trophy of wooden shoes at Hope College and Kalamazoo College in the case of a tie game; each coach takes home one shoe. And in the category of firsts, Youngstown State University was the first to use penalty flags and the University of Minnesota is said to have invented cheerleading. Beck and sportswriter Wilkinson offer a fun catalog of traditions that will likely spark nostalgia or school spirit among readers.
