Austin Murphy’s Saturday Rules: A Season with Trojans and Domers (and Gators and Buckeyes and Wolverines) finds the veteran Sports Illustrated writer traipsing across the country throughout last year’s college football season. He offers a lively you are there diary-like account of his journeys to all the big Division I programs, featuring in-depth analysis of the various teams’ fortunes, including important wins and critical losses, all leading up to the post-season bowl games. Interview focus with a distinctly human-interest slant is on the young athletes (the stars and the lesser-known), but is more so on the high-profile coaches such as Pete Carroll at USC, Charlie Weis at Notre Dame and Urban Meyer at Florida. Murphy’s essentially chronological reportage eventually zeroes in on the Bowl Championship Series and Florida’s title-winner over Ohio State, yet he saves the very best for last via a sit-down visit with the key players responsible for underdog Boise State’s stirring and jarringly spectacular victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, without doubt one of the greatest games in the annals of the college gridiron.
Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.
