[Rarebooks] fa: AMOS ALONZO STAGG - Treatise on Football 1893 - SIGNED BY STAGG & CO-AUTHOR

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, Feb. 21. Details and images can be  
found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://shop.ebay.com/arch_in_la/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340
OR
http://tinyurl.com/ye45od8

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A., CA USA

A[mos] Alonzo Stagg and Henry L. Williams: A Scientific and Practical  
Treatise on American Football for Schools and Colleges. Hartford:  
Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company, 1893. FIRST EDITION.  
Hardcover 16mo (15.5 cm/6.25 in) in original deep blue illustrated  
cloth binding stamped in gilt and black; [2] + 274 pp.; 61 black&white  
diagrams.

SIGNED BY STAGG on the title-page and INSCRIBED BY WILLIAMS on the  
front endpaper (Nov. 1, 1893). The "Grand Old Man" of college football  
and one of the great names in the history of American sports, Amos  
Alonzo Stagg (1862-1965) has a staggering number of "firsts" to his  
credit: he was a member of the first class of inductees to both the  
Basketball and College Football Halls of Fame; he played in the first  
public game of basketball (1892) as well as on the first All-America  
Team (1889); he was the first paid football coach. In basketball, he's  
credited with inventing the five-man team; in baseball, the batting  
cage and the slide; in football, the huddle, the forward pass, the  
lateral pass, numbered plays, the end-around and "Statue of Liberty"  
plays, the man in motion, the tackling dummy, and a host of other  
innovations. Forced to retire as coach at the University of Chicago  
when he turned 70, he went on to coach at College of the Pacific and  
remained active in the sport almost to the day he died at age 102 in  
1965. Stagg played himself in the 1940 film Knute Rockne, All- 
American. Even unsigned, Stagg's and Wilson's Treatise is an  
important, groundbreaking book: the first avowedly scientific  
examination of football and the first to use diagrams, it became a  
guide and "bible" for countless developing college football teams  
during the late 1800's and early 20th century. Includes the "Rules  
Adopted by the American Intercollegiate Football Association for 1893."
Condition is Very Good or better: wear to the corners and spine ends,  
some scattered faint spotting to the spine; mild age-toning to the  
pages, slight separation between front flyleaf and title-page and a  
dimple/crease to the fore-edge of the first 20 leaves or so (both  
perhaps occurring when Stagg signed the book); otherwise contents are  
quite clean and sharp, binding clean with the gilt-stamped footballer  
on the front board still bright. Front paste-down and flyleaf with the  
ink stamps of Anna C. Holmes and Dr. E.W. Holmes of Philadelphia. An  
exceptional copy of an uncommon book, especially scarce in this  
condition, and exponentially so signed.