In 1926, Harvard athletic director Bill Bingham chose former Crimson All-American Arnold Horween as coach of the university’s moribund football team. The pair instilled a fresh culture, one based on merit rather than social status, and in the virtues of honor and courage over mere winning. Yet their success challenged entrenched ideas about who belonged at Harvard and, by extension, who deserved to lay claim to the American dream.
Zev Eleff tells the story of two immigrants’ sons shaped by a vision of an America that rewarded any person of virtue. As a player, the Chicago-born Horween had led Harvard to its 1920 Rose Bowl victory. As a coach, he faced intractable opposition from powerful East Coast alumni because of his values and Midwestern, Jewish background. Eleff traces Bingham and Horween’s careers as student-athletes and their campaign to wrest control of the football program from alumni. He also looks at how Horween undermined stereotypes of Jewish masculinity and dealt with the resurgent antisemitism of the 1920s.
In 1926, Harvard athletic director Bill Bingham chose former Crimson All-American Arnold Horween as coach of the university’s moribund football team. The pair instilled a fresh culture, one based on merit rather than social status, and in the virtues of honor and courage over mere winning. Yet their success challenged entrenched ideas about who belonged at Harvard and, by extension, who deserved to lay claim to the American dream.
Zev Eleff tells the story of two immigrants’ sons shaped by a vision of an America that rewarded any person of virtue. As a player, the Chicago-born Horween had led Harvard to its 1920 Rose Bowl victory. As a coach, he faced intractable opposition from powerful East Coast alumni because of his values and Midwestern, Jewish background. Eleff traces Bingham and Horween’s careers as student-athletes and their campaign to wrest control of the football program from alumni. He also looks at how Horween undermined stereotypes of Jewish masculinity and dealt with the resurgent antisemitism of the 1920s.
Introduction
Chapter I: The (Cinder) Path to a Better Life
Chapter II: Winning isn’t Everything, but it is Something
Chapter III: Americanization, the Jewish Take on Success
Chapter IV: Winning for Winning’s Sake
Chapter V: Football, the Ultimate Wargame of Life
Chapter VI: Horween versus McMahon and Rise of the National Football League
Chapter VII: A Member of the Hebrew Race to Become Head Coach of Harvard?
Chapter VIII: An Honorable Failure and Satisfactory Game in Every Way
Chapter IX: The Crusade to Keep Football a Game
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Zev Eleff is president of Gratz College and a professor of American Jewish history. His books include Authentically Orthodox: A Tradition-Bound Faith in American Life.
"Eleff's well-researched examination of the changes that Horween
and Bingham brought to Harvard in the 1920s is an uplifting story
that is needed as Americans grapple with the latest wave of
anti-Semitism." --Sport in American History
“It sounds like fiction, but it’s true: A century ago, a Jewish
running back and a track star with a working-class background
altered the very nature of sports at Harvard. Kudos to Zev Eleff
for putting Arnold Horween and Bill Bingham at the center of a
poignant story about acceptance.”--John Eisenberg, author of The
League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports
Empire
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