War as They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time of Unrest by Michael Rosenberg (review)

130 MichiganHistoricalReview era where we are forced to pay for the greed and corruption ofWall Street sophisticates. Karen Mahar Siena College Michael Rosenberg. War as TheyKnew It:Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time ofUnrest. New York: Grand Central, 2008. Pp. 384. Index. Notes. Photographs. Cloth, $27.95. Woody and Bo. For any fan of college football, the two firstnames suffice. These two legendary coaches ratcheted the annual Ohio State Michigan football encounter into the greatest rivalry in sports. The story of their friendship, theirbitter competition in the "Big Game," and their late-in-life reconciliation has been related many times. Michael Rosenberg, however, manages to offer a fresh interpretation of this friendship/rivalry. He does so by digging deeply into the psyches of these two coaches and by locating their interaction within the backdrop of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Rosenberg defdy shows theways in which social forces inAnn Arbor and Columbus affected the ostensibly apolitical Saturday ritual of college football. With a reporter's eye for color and drama, Rosenberg relates not only the decade-long batde between Hayes and Schembechler, but also how politics, popular culture, and themedia altered these twomen. In some ways War as They Knew It is a comparative study of how the obsessive nature of major college athletics destroys the nonsports side of coaches' lives and then often destroys them physically as well. Both Woody and Bo suffered serious physical ailments as a result of their determination towin. That aspect of the story is often recounted. Rosenberg's approach differs in that,while still examining the physical deterioration both men experienced, he focuses on the emotional cost of coaching. Over and over again he distinguishes the singular personality trait that separated these two men, whose coaching styles seemed to mark them as quite similar: Hayes viewed himself as a faculty member who coached, while Schembechler saw himself as a coach first and foremost. Woody endlessly pontificated about politics, military history, academic standards, and the ways in which student unrest damaged America. When placed within the context of the counterculture and the sweeping social changes that buffeted Ann Arbor in the 1960s and 1970s, the archconservative Hayes's refusal to Book Reviews131 even say "Michigan" takes on added meaning. John Sinclair, drugs, and antiwar protests signaled the collapse of society to Hayes. The University ofMichigan became the embodiment of everything he was against. Bo lived only for football and often seemed completely disengaged from the chaotic conditions around him. Even the student body's decision to convert a halftime homecoming celebration into an antiwar rally did not faze him. Bo wanted to beat Ohio State simply because theywere the perennial obstacle keeping Michigan from the Rose Bowl. As Rosenberg notes, "Bo Schembechler was one of the guys,Woody Hayes was never one of the guys" (p. 83). Rosenberg's novel prism creates bright new windows into the familiar story of Bo andWoody. His social-history approach makes for riveting reading. And forMichigan fans addled by Ohio State's recent dominance on the field, the book might serve as a reminder that the rivalrywas once very different. It might also remind them just how differentAmerica once was aswell. Scott Beekman University of Rio Grande James M. Rubenstein. Making and SellingCars: Innovationand Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Pp. 401. Bibliography. Drawings. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Paperback reissue, $35.00. That symbol of twentieth-century technology, the automobile, usually warrants a subsection in historical surveys or college courses, yet rarely is automotive history treated as a category unto itself. Instead, the history of the automobile is subdivided into specialties. Even largerworks on the subject tend toward the narrow, and holistic approaches to automotive history are generally presented as encyclopedias. Making and Selling Cars is that rare work thatmanages to create a coherent general review of the automobile. To some extent, Rubenstein's book resembles the pioneering works from the 1960s that first created "automotive history." Unlike other broad assessments, however, the author avoids chronologies and narratives. Although the book is limited primarily to theAmerican market, Making and Selling Cars achieves a larger view while presenting important details...