Cara Turano

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Michael E. Lomax
The University of Georgia


Abstract

The relationship of college sports with the media emerged in the late nineteenth century, when Walter Camp entered Yale University with an immense love for football. Camp, along with the Yale football program, dominated college football and established the dimensions for the early game. Through the successful Yale program, Camp was able to shape the public perception of the college game in the early twentieth century and create a fan base consisting of the general public rather than just alumni and university students. A central factor in college football?s increase in popularity was the symbiotic relationship that emerged between the sport and the press. This relationship originated in the 1890s, and simultaneously began permeating popular literature. The fundamental underpinning of the fictional portrayals was to construct the ideal college athlete, who should exemplify the qualities embodied by productive American citizens and embrace the ideals of good sportsmanship and amateurism. The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to explore the symbiotic relationship that evolved between intercollegiate football and the popular press, and (2) to illustrate how these images conflicted with college football?s realities in the early twentieth century. An examination of the popular literature combined with the historical literature on college athletics will reveal how Walter Camp constructed the ideal image for the college athlete, which led to an increase in the sport?s popularity. The popular novels will be contextualized with the historical sport literature to illustrate how these crafted images conflicted with the realities of early college football.


Section One