For more than 50 years, Sports Illustrated has been the gold standard of sports writing, and during that time, footballonce a popular college pastime but only a rag-tag professional gamehas moved to center stage, taking its unquestioned place as Americas most popular sport.This book brings together dozens of football classics from the pages of SI, featuring the work of such esteemed writers as John OHara and Jack Kerouac, Dan Jenkins and George Plimpton, Don DeLillo and John Underwood and John Ed Bradley.And of course, the collection includes many of the longtime favorites of SI readers: Frank Deford and Rick Reilly, Steve Rushin and Gary Smith, Peter King and Rick Telander, and the inimitable Dr. Z, Paul Zimmerman.Covering more than half a century of the game at every level from high school to the Super Bowl, this volume will be indispensable reading for serious football fans.