Audiobook10 hours
The Game: Harvard, Yale, and America in 1968
Written by George Howe Colt
Narrated by George Newbern
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
*A New York Times Notable Book*
*A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year*
From the bestselling National Book Award finalist and author of The Big House comes “a well-blended narrative packed with top-notch reporting and relevance for our own time” (The Boston Globe) about the young athletes who battled in the legendary Harvard-Yale football game of 1968 amidst the sweeping currents of one of the most transformative years in American history.
On November 23, 1968, there was a turbulent and memorable football game: the season-ending clash between Harvard and Yale. The final score was 29-29. To some of the players, it was a triumph; to others a tragedy. And to many, the reasons had as much to do with one side’s miraculous comeback in the game’s final forty-two seconds as it did with the months that preceded it, months that witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, police brutality at the Democratic National Convention, inner-city riots, campus takeovers, and, looming over everything, the war in Vietnam.
George Howe Colt’s The Game is the story of that iconic American year, as seen through the young men who lived it and were changed by it. One player had recently returned from Vietnam. Two were members of the radical antiwar group SDS. There was one NFL prospect who quit to devote his time to black altruism; another who went on to be Pro-Bowler Calvin Hill. There was a guard named Tommy Lee Jones, and fullback who dated a young Meryl Streep. They played side by side and together forged a moment of startling grace in the midst of the storm.
“Vibrant, energetic, and beautifully structured” (NPR), this magnificent and intimate work of history is the story of ordinary people in an extraordinary time, and of a country facing issues that we continue to wrestle with to this day. “The Game is the rare sports book that lives up to the claim of so many entrants in this genre: It is the portrait of an era” (The Wall Street Journal).
*A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year*
From the bestselling National Book Award finalist and author of The Big House comes “a well-blended narrative packed with top-notch reporting and relevance for our own time” (The Boston Globe) about the young athletes who battled in the legendary Harvard-Yale football game of 1968 amidst the sweeping currents of one of the most transformative years in American history.
On November 23, 1968, there was a turbulent and memorable football game: the season-ending clash between Harvard and Yale. The final score was 29-29. To some of the players, it was a triumph; to others a tragedy. And to many, the reasons had as much to do with one side’s miraculous comeback in the game’s final forty-two seconds as it did with the months that preceded it, months that witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, police brutality at the Democratic National Convention, inner-city riots, campus takeovers, and, looming over everything, the war in Vietnam.
George Howe Colt’s The Game is the story of that iconic American year, as seen through the young men who lived it and were changed by it. One player had recently returned from Vietnam. Two were members of the radical antiwar group SDS. There was one NFL prospect who quit to devote his time to black altruism; another who went on to be Pro-Bowler Calvin Hill. There was a guard named Tommy Lee Jones, and fullback who dated a young Meryl Streep. They played side by side and together forged a moment of startling grace in the midst of the storm.
“Vibrant, energetic, and beautifully structured” (NPR), this magnificent and intimate work of history is the story of ordinary people in an extraordinary time, and of a country facing issues that we continue to wrestle with to this day. “The Game is the rare sports book that lives up to the claim of so many entrants in this genre: It is the portrait of an era” (The Wall Street Journal).
Author
George Howe Colt
George Howe Colt is the bestselling author of The Big House, which was a National Book Award finalist and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; Brothers; November of the Soul; and The Game. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife, the writer Anne Fadiman.
Related to The Game
Related audiobooks
The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Warren Spahn: A Biography of the Legendary Lefty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5108 Stitches: Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Baseball 100 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Moment in Time: An American Story of Baseball, Heartbreak, and Grace Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Gunslinger: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heisman: The Man Behind the Trophy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gods at Play: An Eyewitness Account of Great Moments in American Sports Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Long Shot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Innocents: The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Great Game: Duke vs. Kentucky and the 2.1 Seconds That Changed Basketball Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Their Life's Work: The Brotherhood of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Broadway Joe: The Super Bowl TEAM That Changed Football Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Football for a Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whispers of the Gods: Tales from Baseball's Golden Age, Told by the Men Who Played It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memories from the Microphone: A Century of Baseball Broadcasting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Here's the Catch: A Memoir of the Miracle Mets and More Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In Scoring Position: 40 Years of a Baseball Love Affair Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Social History For You
Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Barracoon: The Story of the Last ""Black Cargo"" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me for Young Readers: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravaging of African American Voting Rights Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines, and the Health of Nations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Days in November Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Three Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Reformation: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with our Wild Neighbors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hip-Hop Is History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Game
Rating: 4.500000375 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
8 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Overall a pretty entertaining listen though the vast majority of the book is about the atmosphere at ivy league colleges during 1968 and attitudes surrounding the Vietnam war rather than the football game itself. First 7+ hours are essentially background info on the political climate.