Walter Camp's Book of College Sports

Walter CAMP

Item#: 81334 We're sorry, this item has been sold

Walter Camp's Book of College Sports

“MAY THE BEST MAN WIN”: WALTER CAMP’S BOOK OF COLLEGE SPORTS, 1893

CAMP, Walter. Walter Camp’s Book of College Sports. New York: Century, 1893. Thick octavo, original tan cloth, gilt-stamped cover with sports motif, top edge gilt.

First edition of this college coaching manual by the father of American football, with 72 wood-engraved illustrations of sports techniques in track, rowing, baseball and, of course, football, with appendices of rules and conditions for each sport.

Generally considered as the father of American football, Camp “was instrumental through writing and lecturing in attaching an almost mythical atmosphere of manliness and heroism to the game not previously known in American team sports” (Borkowski). His belief that amateur sports developed such qualities as self-control, leadership, citizenship and rugged individualism caused Camp to champion most sports and conditioning programs. This book of Camp’s coaching techniques and advice on four college sports contains “many apparently insignificant details, which every coach knows and recognizes when he sees them in print as an old story, but which are on that very account so easily forgotten as to make it worth while to read them at least once a season.”

Expert repair to front inner hinge. A near-fine copy.

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