Bragging Rights:
A Season Inside the SEC,
College Football's Toughest Conference.

by Richard Ernsberger

Read free excepts from "Bragging Rights", the absorbing new book about the SEC and the amazing stories of college football. The Southeastern Conference is college football's crucible – the toughest and most demanding league in the land. What makes it so? What motivates the "slashing hell fellows" who play the game? What drives the coaches, who are paid well but under enormous pressure? Find out in these excepts:

Roughnecks and Romance: An Introduction to the SEC

It was good to be back in the South. After twelve years in New York City and two years in Tokyo with Newsweek magazine, during which time I wrote mostly esoteric foreign news stories, I was getting back to my roots"major-college southern football. I'd decided to write a book about Southeastern Conference (SEC) football specifically, the 1999 season, which promised, like all SEC seasons, to be both wild and unpredictable, with a dozen roughneck teams and millions of fanatical fans, galvanized by another quest for supremacy in America's toughest conference. More. . .

Energy and Passion

The demand for tickets to SEC games is overwhelming. At the more successful schools, such as Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn, and Georgia, fans must contribute roughly $2,000 to their university's athletic department just to be eligible to buy two season tickets. More. . .

A Secret Weapon

Maybe it all started with Harold "War Eagle" Ketron. In the early 1900s, Ketron came out of the north Georgia mountains to become one of Georgia's most notorious football stars. When the ball was snapped, Ketron would spit tobacco juice in his opponent's eye and then make the tackle. Spitting tobacco was his secret weapon. More. . .

Downgrade Football?

In the late 1980s former Alabama President Joab Thomas created a huge stir when he challenged the primacy of the school's football program. Thomas, who has a Ph.D. from Harvard, declared that he wanted boost Alabama's academic reputation"so that people around the country would not perceive the university as merely a football school. If necessary to accomplish that goal, he said, less emphasis should be placed on the sport. More. . .

A Pressure Caldron

SEC coaches are smalltown guys. They come from Winchester, Tennessee; Opp, Alabama; and Camden, Arkansas. They come from working-class backgrounds»and bring a working-class ethic to their jobs. It's a good thing, because coaching in the SEC is a pressure caldron. The head man must recruit talented young players out of high school, raise money, entertain alumni, perform charitable work, graduate his players. And win football games. You think your job is tough? More. . .

On the Road

My reporting started last May, when I drove down from Tampa, Florida, to Gainesville to interview University of Florida Football Coach Steve Spurrier. Gator fans affectionately call him "The Head Ball Coach." Gator foes decry his "evil genius." More. . .

Fathers and Sons

How did I come to undertake this (crazy) project? Simple: I am a journalist, a writer for Newsweek magazine, and I like college football. My father, a native of Mansfield, Ohio, was an SEC football player. In the early 1950s, Dick Ernsberger was a 6-foot, 160-pound fullback for the University of Tennessee. More. . .