Brian Ingrassia, "The Rise of Gridiron University: Higher Education's Uneasy Alliance with Big-Time Football"

Alumni reception and book signing to follow the lecture in the Hesburgh Center Great Hall. 

Brian M. Ingrassia teaches American history at Middle Tennessee State University.  He has also taught at Georgia State University and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.   In Ingrassia’s book he examines the early football programs at universities like Michigan, Stanford, Ohio State, and others, and then puts those histories in the context of Progressive Era culture, including insights from coaches like Georgia Tech’s John Heisman and Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne.

The Rise of Gridiron University shows us where and how it all began, highlighting college football’s essential role in shaping the modern university-and by extension American intellectual culture.

Read more about Brian M. Ingrassia at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-college-football-and-big-government/2012/09/07/66f77a8a-f84d-11e1-8b93-c4f4ab1c8d13_story.html

Related story from The Observer: http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/news/historian-connects-higher-education-and-football-1.2909405#.UGCBABg-IZ4