You can’t help root for Chris Clouser, excellent researcher and writer, even better guy. The affable Hoosier who made his name as author of the definitive work on the life of Perry Maxwell has now penned an in depth book detailing the history of the Big Ten athletic conference and anyone with an interest in college athletics will find it a useful trove of both history and anecdotes.
“My goal with this book was to provide that history and tell the story of conference and explain why the Big Ten is still important to college athletics,” Clouser explained in an interview with your author. “With a history so rich and so full of many of the greatest athletes, coaches, teams, and administrators in the history of intercollegiate sport, it is a story that deserves to be told.”
Clouser tells the story well, if a little glossy at times. The real success of Clouser’s work is that the reader realizes how the individuals who built and nurtured the various programs are more critical to the success of the programs and their storied traditions than the powerhouse institutions themselves. The people are the story.
Yes, Clouser traces the formation and growth of the conference. He also outlines the duality between the rise of sports television and the rise of the conference. But by tying in the individual stories of the people – the John Woodens and Bo Schembechlers and Woody Hayeses and Charlie Pondses and Hoosier swimming teams he personalizes the story of an otherwise faceless corporation that people outside the Big Ten region can find compelling. Jerry Lucas, Bob Griese, are Jack Nicklaus are the story – both in their own personal success and in how that success benefitted the growth of the conference.
[Author’s Note: The author should add in Nicklaus’s section that he got to dot the famous “I” on “Ohio” at a recent OSU-Michigan game.]Clouser also handles certain social issues well, particularly the preconception that the conference is really the Big 2 and the Little 8 (9? 10?), and the impact of the addition of Penn State and Nebraska. If there is a drawback I wish he hadn’t dismissed the Penn State scandal and the Jim Tressel violations in mere asides, but the book’s use as a resource and research tool is perhaps adequate compensation.
Finally, it’s nice to see that a writing style I call “good guy-chic” is still in vogue. Clouser’s style is similar to Adam Schupak (of Deane Beman book fame) and David Barrett (who wrote an award winning book about Hogan’s win at Merion). Their styles may be a little dry and their prose unadorned, but their in-depth research and the thorough way in which they tackle a complex subject carries the day successfully, and their work is the finest analysis to date of the subject matter they discuss. They give every indie writer hope and are a great “nice guys finish first” story in which we can all find inspiration.
[Editor’s Note: Clouser also authored a book on Indiana public golf courses called “A Month of Sundays” as well as a GolfClubAtlas.com article he co-authored with Jay Flemma comparing and contrasting major championship venue Southern Hills Country Club with nearby Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club which is here.]Trophies and Tradition: the History of the Big Ten Conference
© 2012 by Christopher Clouser
ISBN No. 9781477661703
290 pp.
C2 Publishing
