Review of "Strange but True Football Stories," compiled by Zander Hollander

Review of

Strange but True Football Stories, compiled by Zander Hollander ISBN 0394901983

Four out of five stars

 Many of the stories in this collection have appeared elsewhere, so are well known. There is the very famous sneaker game between the Giants and Bears in 1934, the famous “five downs” game in 1940 between Cornell and Dartmouth, the wrong way run by Viking Jim Marshall and the time when halfback Tom Matte was forced to play quarterback for the Baltimore Colts in the 1965 playoff game against the Green Bay Packers. A memorable feature of the game where Matte played quarterback was his use of a wristband crib sheet to help him in calling the plays.

 The most significant feature of the book is the historical recollections about the changed role of football powers in college football. As some of the stories demonstrate, in the first half of the twentieth century, there were powerful teams fielded by small colleges and Ivy League schools were major powers in college football. There were also some incredible mismatches.

 Written for the adolescent reader, this is a book about some of the unusual events that have taken place involving a few of the people that made the modern game what it is today.