ABSTRACT
The story of football's emergence as a great public spectacle began in an age of crisis. As football grew in importance, college teams began to employ "tramp athletes", who made their way around the country playing college football for pay. Football is slavish work. "The spirit of the American youth, as of the American man, is to win, to get there', by fair means or foul", observed a Nation writer in 1890", and the lack of moral scruple which pervades the struggles of the business world meets with temptations equally irresistible in the miniature contests of the football field". The reign of football as the king of American sporting spectacles began in the 1920s, as attendance at college games doubled and gate receipts tripled. College football became the darling of the media. The employment of football to express regional consciousness and identity was especially powerful in the South.
