Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America - Paperback

by Diane Roberts (Author)

Part introspective soul searching, part sharp cultural analysis, Tribal tackles the controversies plaguing big-time college athletics, tracing the dubious historical underpinnings of Americans' most popular sport and offering a visceral, often funny look at its tribal thrills and deep contradictions.

Florida State's football team is always in the headlines, producing Heisman Trophy candidates and winning championships while dealing with federal investigations into corruption and rape. Like many big-time collegiate sports programs, it seems that if they excel on the field, all is forgiven. Writer, professor, and conflicted Seminole Diane Roberts examines the problems on her own campus in Tallahassee, placing them within the larger context of college football history and its significance in American life, and explores how the game shapes our Southern culture.

How can a game so rife with corruption and controversy still hold the American South captive?

• Cultural Analysis: An unflinching and often hilarious look at the quasi-religious fervor of college football from the perspective of a writer, professor, and deeply conflicted Florida State Seminole fan.
• NCAA Controversies: A deep dive into the scandals plaguing major programs, using Florida State's high-profile troubles with corruption, academic fraud, and violence as a compelling case study.
• Tribalism in Sports: An exploration of the rituals, rivalries, and identities that turn Saturdays in the fall into a consecrated battleground where you are either with us or against us.
• Sports History: A look at the game's dubious origins, tracing a line from brutal medieval contests to the modern game's complicated role in the politics of race, gender, and culture in America.

Front Jacket

Diane Roberts is a self-described feminist with a PhD from Oxford. She's also a second-generation season ticket holder--and an English professor--at one of the most elite college football schools in the country. So every Saturday from September through December she surrenders to her Inner Barbarian. The same goes for the rest of her "tribe," those thousands of hooting, hollering, beer-swilling Seminoles who, like Roberts, spent the 2013--14 season basking in the loping, history-making Hail Marys of Jameis Winston, the team's Heisman-winning quarterback, when they weren't gawking, dumbstruck, at the headlines in which he was accused of sexual assault.

In Tribal, Roberts explores college football's grip on the country at the very moment when gender roles are blurring, social institutions are in flux, and the question of who is an American is frequently challenged. For die-hard fans, the sport is a comfortable retreat into tradition, proof of our national virility, and a reflection of an America without troubling ambiguities. Yet, Roberts argues, it is also a representation of the buried heart of this country: a game and a culture built upon the dark past of the South, secrets so obvious they hide in plain sight. With her droll Southern voice, Roberts offers a sociological unpacking of the sport's dubious history that is at once affectionate and cautionary.

Back Jacket

Diane Roberts is a self-described feminist with a PhD from Oxford. She's also a second-generation season ticket holder--and an English professor--at one of the most elite college football schools in the country. So every Saturday from September through December she surrenders to her Inner Barbarian. The same goes for the rest of her "tribe," those thousands of hooting, hollering, beer-swilling Seminoles who, like Roberts, spent the 2013--14 season basking in the loping, history-making Hail Marys of Jameis Winston, the team's Heisman-winning quarterback, when they weren't gawking, dumbstruck, at the headlines in which he was accused of sexual assault.

In Tribal, Roberts explores college football's grip on the country at the very moment when gender roles are blurring, social institutions are in flux, and the question of who is an American is frequently challenged. For die-hard fans, the sport is a comfortable retreat into tradition, proof of our national virility, and a reflection of an America without troubling ambiguities. Yet, Roberts argues, it is also a representation of the buried heart of this country: a game and a culture built upon the dark past of the South, secrets so obvious they hide in plain sight. With her droll Southern voice, Roberts offers a sociological unpacking of the sport's dubious history that is at once affectionate and cautionary.