A New York Times Bestseller and Boston Globe Bestseller It s America s most popular sport, played by thousands, watched by millions, and generating billions in revenues every year. It s also America s most controversial sport, haunted by the specter of life-threatening injuries and plagued by scandal, even among its most venerable personalities and institutions. At the college level, we often tie football s tales of corruption and greed to its current popularity and revenue potential, and we have vague notions of a halcyon time before the new College Football Playoff, power conferences, and huge TV contracts. Perhaps we conjure images of young Ivy Leaguers playing a gentleman s game, exemplifying the collegial in collegiate. What we don t imagine is a game described in 1905 as a social obsession this boy-killing, man-mutilating, education-prostituting, gladiatorial sport. In The Opening Kickoff, Dave Revsine tells the riveting story of the formative period of American football between 1890 and 1915. In just a quarter century football spread across the nation, captivating people from coast to coast. It was a time that saw the game s meteoric rise, fueled by overflow crowds, breathless newspaper coverage, and newfound superstars including one of the most thrilling and mysterious the sport has ever seen. But it was also a period racked by controversy in academics, recruiting, and physical brutality that, in combination, threatened football s very existence. A vivid storyteller, Revsine brings it all to life in this captivating narrative."