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The Team That Invented College Football
Sally Jenkins
September 09, 2010
JUST 22 YEARS AFTER THE BATTLE OF WOUNDED KNEE, THE CARLISLE INDIANS, COACHED BY GLENN (POP) WARNER, TRANSFORMED A PLODDING, BRUTAL AND DULL SPORT INTO THE FAST, INTRICATE AND EXCITING GAME WE KNOW TODAY
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September 09, 2010

The Team That Invented College Football

JUST 22 YEARS AFTER THE BATTLE OF WOUNDED KNEE, THE CARLISLE INDIANS, COACHED BY GLENN (POP) WARNER, TRANSFORMED A PLODDING, BRUTAL AND DULL SPORT INTO THE FAST, INTRICATE AND EXCITING GAME WE KNOW TODAY

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The next day The New York Times called the Indians "one of the most spectacular aggregations of football players, especially in the backfield, ever assembled." They had played, the paper concluded, "the most perfect brand of football ever seen in America."

Every member of the Carlisle team considered it the most satisfying game he had ever won. "The rattling of the bones," Welch called it.

THE REAL ALL AMERICANS, by Sally Jenkins, from which this story is adapted, is available in paperback and as an ebook. Published with permission from Vintage Anchor Publishing, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Group, a division of Random House Inc., © 2007 by Sally Jenkins.

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