"Football as a war game: The annotated journals of General R.R. Neyland"

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Volosaurus rex

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Just a quick heads-up for anyone who might interested in acquiring mint copies of "Football as a war game: The annotated journals of General R.R. Neyland." This volume has been out of print for a long time but I just ran across a listing on Amazon.com (Football as a war game: The annotated journals of General R.R. Neyland: Andy Kozar: 9780972674904: Amazon.com: Books) for a few copies at $49.95 apiece. I believe that I paid considerably more than that for a copy that I once purchased as a Christmas present for my brother. In any event, you usually have to pay top dollar on the used book market for this volume; used copies listed on Amazon.com range from $120 on up.

Purely as a publication, this is a leather-bound, gilt-edged work of art but, more importantly, this is a truly scholarly work. The following is excerpted from Amazon.com's synopsis:

"Football as a War Game is a compilation of the rarely before seen handwritten journals of General Neyland's entire career at the University of Tennessee. The book offers a very personal look into how he approached the game . It includes his coaching philosophies, practice techniques, play designs and football strategies. Included are over 250 historical photos, 200+ digitally reproduced journal pages, detailed explanations by Andy Kozar which give the reader better insight into the mindset of General Neyland, early football innovations, diagrams of plays and practice regiments, psychological strategies employed both in game preparation and on the field, strict rules and guidelines for all players as written by Neyland, and hunting and fishing stories from General Neyland. This book has been created in a manner to allow it to be passed on to future generations. The author, Dr. Andy Kozar, is considered to be one of the greatest fullbacks in UT history, All-SEC in 1952, and was an integral member of the 1951 National Championship team. Dr. Kozar spent six years researching and annotating the handwritten journals. As Dr. Kozar states, "this is the origin of Tennessee football in the General's own words, his thoughts on a day to day, game to game basis, as he wrote them on paper."
 
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#3
#3
Purchased. Awesome find. I've looked at this book before but it was past the point at which I could slide the cost by the misses. $50 should go unnoticed. :)
 
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#6
#6
Volosaurus rex said:
Just a quick heads-up for anyone who might interested in acquiring mint copies of "Football as a war game: The annotated journals of General R.R. Neyland." This volume has been out of print for a long time but I just ran across a listing on Amazon.com (Football as a war game: The annotated journals of General R.R. Neyland: Andy Kozar: 9780972674904: Amazon.com: Books) for a few copies at $49.95 apiece. I believe that I paid considerably more than that for a copy that I once purchased as a Christmas present for my brother. In any event, you usually have to pay top dollar on the used book market for this volume; used copies listed on Amazon.com range from $120 on up.

Purely as a publication, this is a leather-bound, gilt-edged work of art but, more importantly, this is a truly scholarly work. The following is excerpted from Amazon.com's synopsis:

"Football as a War Game is a compilation of the rarely before seen handwritten journals of General Neyland's entire career at the University of Tennessee. The book offers a very personal look into how he approached the game . It includes his coaching philosophies, practice techniques, play designs and football strategies. Included are over 250 historical photos, 200+ digitally reproduced journal pages, detailed explanations by Andy Kozar which give the reader better insight into the mindset of General Neyland, early football innovations, diagrams of plays and practice regiments, psychological strategies employed both in game preparation and on the field, strict rules and guidelines for all players as written by Neyland, and hunting and fishing stories from General Neyland. This book has been created in a manner to allow it to be passed on to future generations. The author, Dr. Andy Kozar, is considered to be one of the greatest fullbacks in UT history, All-SEC in 1952, and was an integral member of the 1951 National Championship team. Dr. Kozar spent six years researching and annotating the handwritten journals. As Dr. Kozar states, "this is the origin of Tennessee football in the General's own words, his thoughts on a day to day, game to game basis, as he wrote them on paper."
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Great book! See also "The Big Orange", "Neyland:The Gridiron General" and "The Third Saturday in October". Honorable mentions:"On Rocky Top", "Orange Lightning" and "You Can Go Home Again".

Also recently purchased a collector's edition of "The Greatest Moments in Tennessee Vols Football History" though I haven't read it yet. Apparently 500 were officially signed by Kozar, Shuler, Holloway and others.
 
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#8
#8
daj2576 said:
Great book! See also "The Big Orange", "Neyland:The Gridiron General" and "The Third Saturday in October". Honorable mentions:"On Rocky Top", "Orange Lightning" and "You Can Go Home Again".

Also recently purchased a collector's edition of "The Greatest Moments in Tennessee Vols Football History" though I haven't read it yet. Apparently 500 were officially signed by Kozar, Shuler, Holloway and others.
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You missed one lol. "Vols, Three Decades Of Tennessee Football 1964-1993". It's the follow up to "The Big Orange".
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#12
#12
MyBloodRunnethOrange said:
I've read it several times. Good book.
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I am actually making my way through a book called "Game Day and God" written by a UT graduate assessing the cultural and spiritual significance of football in the south.

The book definitely has a UT slant and even has Al Wilson on the cover. It is interesting, to be sure but I am not certain that I could recommend it to the average football fan.
 
#13
#13
Thanks for that info. I wasn't aware of this newly published volume, "Game Day and God: Football, Faith, and Politics in the American South" (see Game Day and God: Football, Faith, and Politics in the American South (Sports and Religion): Eric Bain-Selbo: 9780881464177: Amazon.com: Books). It is a thoroughly defensible premise that affiliation with sports teams, particularly college football in the South, has become a secular religion of sorts for many people. I have seen previous academics, most notably sociologists, advance the argument that, in the post-Civil War geopolitical landscape, college football gradually became a venue through which Southerners could gain a measure of respect, a degree of retribution or self-assumed superiority in relation to Northerners. I regret that I do not recall the title of the volume I have in mind but this synopsis may jog the memory of others.

A case in point was excerpted from the pre-game preparations of Dan McGugin, Vanderbilt's outstanding coach during the first quarter of the twentieth century. McGugin was a Michigan grad, a point that he apparently did not emphasize to his players. During his tenure, the Commodes scheduled a series of games with the Wolverines. They never beat Michigan but, prior to the 1922 game, McGugin played the fabled "Lost Cause of the Confederacy" theme to the hilt, informing his team that, sixty years ago, the grandfathers of the Michigan boys were killing their grandfathers in the Civil War. That message struck an inspirational chord as the Commodes rose up . . . and held Michigan to a scoreless tie. Of course, McGugin did not mention the fact that he was a Michigan grad and the brother-in-law of Fielding Yost, Michigan's coach (1922 Michigan Wolverines football team - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

This was the era of Red Grange and, as much as it pains me to say it, Vanderbilt was a regional power in those days. Vanderbilt under McGugin put "together consecutive undefeated seasons in 1921 and 1922. During those years, the Commodores shut out the leading football teams in the South, including Alabama in 1921 (14–0), Texas in 1921 (20–0), Tennessee in 1921 (14–0), Georgia in 1922 (12–0), Kentucky in 1922 (9–0), and Sewanee twice (9–0 and 26–0)." If you go back even farther, before Alabama was even a pimple on the back side of college football, the Commodes, as difficult as it is to believe, actually shut them out in three consecutive games: 30-0 in 1903, 34-0 in 1905, and 78-0 in 1906.
 
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#15
#15
Thread is now several months old, but I thought many of my family members (i.e. y'all) might want to do as I did and order this as a Christmas present. I got one each for me and my dad. If you want to get an inside glimpse into Neyland's mind, you can either order this book or schedule an appointment to see the originals with the university (good luck....).

In talking with Falcon Press when ordering, I found out that the publisher is selling the rights to the book back to the Kozar family. Inasmuch, their stock of the book will be limited moving forward. There is no word on how long it will take the Kozar family to get the book back into distribution or if it will resemble the same high quality leather bound display book that you can get now. Thus, if you want to get this extremely unique piece of Tennnessee history, I would call them now. Shipping only took a few days for me.
 
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#18
#18
This would be an awesome one of a kind gift for any vol fan. I'm picking up another for a friend of mine.
 
#21
#21
General Neyland deserves all the credit in the world for being the best UT coach ever, but these military metaphors and analogies are corny as hell.
 
#22
#22
Chris4Vols22 said:
General Neyland deserves all the credit in the world for being the best UT coach ever, but these military metaphors and analogies are corny as hell.
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The man was a West Point grad, served in World Wars I and II, rose to the rank of Brigadier General, was awarded the "Distinguished Service Medal and the Legion of Merit and made a member of the Order of the British Empire" (Robert Neyland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Yet, you find it "corny as hell" that such a man should think like a soldier, talk like a soldier and coach like a soldier. Some thoughts truly are best left in the catacombs of the mind as opposed to being recorded for posterity.
 
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