Natural Enemies: Major College Football's Oldest, Fiercest Rivalry - Michigan VS. Notre Dame FROM THE PUBLISHER
Notre Dame football historian Francis Wallace made that observation half a century ago. Like other insiders at the time, he knew of the intense feuds that had quietly simmered for decades between these two proud, tradition-rich football teams. Natural Enemies raises all those icebergs to the surface. John Kryk spent four years researching and writing this landmark book, which the Chicago Tribune has called the "definitive history of the rivalry" in its first edition. Indeed, Natural Enemies is so much more than a mere recounting of old games. The football fates of Michigan and Notre Dame have been intertwined since that cold November day in 1887 when the Wolverines literally taught football to an eager group of Notre Dame students. By the turn of the twentieth century, relations between the teams began to sour significantly. The off-the-field battles over the next sixty-plus years -- some of which Kryk has uncovered for the first time, others of which he sheds dramatic new light on -- were no less intense, no less legendary, than the unforgettable football games these Midwestern titans have played almost annually since 1978. Richly illustrated in this newly updated edition, Natural Enemies weaves these two chronologies together to produce a college-football-rivalry book like no other.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
This lively survey serves as a history not only of competition between rival schools, but also of the sport the teams have come to define (in terms of tradition) and to lead in nearly every major statistical category: college football. Because Michigan and Notre Dame's meetings on the gridiron have been relatively scarce, Kryk notes that fans, looking for archenemies, naturally associate USC with Notre Dame and Ohio State with Michigan. But, he points out, when Notre Dame and Michigan first played in 1887, neither the Ohio State nor USC teams among many others even existed. Kryk, a journalist and a confessed Michigan fan, presents a fair, detailed account of the often incendiary yet grudgingly respectful relationship between these landmark programs. From the early friction between Michigan legendary coach Fielding Yost and Notre Dame's Knute Rockne to modern disputes like whether or not there was a "gentleman's agreement" that both teams would open their seasons against each other without the benefit of a prior contest, Kryk captures behind-the-scenes politics, the dramatic twists of individual games and the evolving nature of football itself. While the book will surely appeal most to fans, others will find a work that's crisply written, thoroughly reported and infused with a reverence that never compromises the telling of a fascinating tale. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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