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Rating: 
Summary: enlightening yet boring
Review: After reading this insightful work on the triumphs and tragedies of college athletes, I can honestly say I enjoy the college football I watch more and more. One cannot fail to gain an appreciation for the struggles encountered by student and coach alike. A MUST read for any college sports fan- whether a Nittany Lion fan or not. Very well done and unbiased in its approach...
Rating: 
Summary: An OK read, but lacks depth
Review: Denlinger just tried to do too much here. He follows an incoming class of a couple dozen football players over their five years of eligibility. Unfortunately, that's such a huge subject material it's hard to have any meaningful depth to the individual players' stories. He'll be talking about player A for a couple of pages, but that will be it, since there's so many other players to follow. Then, you often won't hear about that player for "another year." One reviewer made reference to Friday Night Lights, and one strength of that book is that the author only focused on about 5 players over 1 year. I felt I knew those Permian Panthers at the end of the book; you're still struggling to figure out which Nittany Lion is which at the end of this one. JoePa is the person you learn most about ... but even there it's just about his interactions with the players, as opposed to a macroscopic overlook of how Paterno oversees the whole football program. Paterno comes off well, and it's a credit to him that with a sports reporter lurking around his program steadily for five straight years, Denlinger (admittedly, a PSU alum) found very little negative to say about the football team's administration. As an alum myself, it was disappointing that not much was written about what makes the Penn State campus experience unique. The book comes off as being set in Any State University, as opposed to State College vs Columbus, Ann Arbor, etc.... Overall, I suppose I sound negative. Really, it's not a bad read .... I just found it somewhat shallow and vanilla. IMHO, there's more to write about college footbook than this book found.
Rating:
Summary: An OK read, but lacks depth
Review: Denlinger just tried to do too much here. He follows an incoming class of a couple dozen football players over their five years of eligibility. Unfortunately, that's such a huge subject material it's hard to have any meaningful depth to the individual players' stories. He'll be talking about player A for a couple of pages, but that will be it, since there's so many other players to follow. Then, you often won't hear about that player for "another year." One reviewer made reference to Friday Night Lights, and one strength of that book is that the author only focused on about 5 players over 1 year. I felt I knew those Permian Panthers at the end of the book; you're still struggling to figure out which Nittany Lion is which at the end of this one. JoePa is the person you learn most about ... but even there it's just about his interactions with the players, as opposed to a macroscopic overlook of how Paterno oversees the whole football program. Paterno comes off well, and it's a credit to him that with a sports reporter lurking around his program steadily for five straight years, Denlinger (admittedly, a PSU alum) found very little negative to say about the football team's administration. As an alum myself, it was disappointing that not much was written about what makes the Penn State campus experience unique. The book comes off as being set in Any State University, as opposed to State College vs Columbus, Ann Arbor, etc.... Overall, I suppose I sound negative. Really, it's not a bad read .... I just found it somewhat shallow and vanilla. IMHO, there's more to write about college footbook than this book found.
Rating:
Summary: A soberly honest book on college football
Review: For The Glory calls itself "a player's book", therefore anybody looking for an in-depth study of legendary Penn State University coach Joe Paterno will be disappointed. Neither does the book concentrate on any major scandals usually associated with big-time college football. Denlinger instead details the dedication, frustration, disillusionment, and for a fortunate few, the fulfillment experienced by twenty-eight young men between 1988 and 1993, as they cope with the mental and physical pressures of playing football for perennial college powerhouse Penn State. Denlinger focuses on the fluctuating fortunes of the players as they struggle both to maintain an acceptable academic performance and also earn a starting place in the team. In so doing, he shows how for some players, the entire college experience is an attritional process of disappointment and discontent. In addition, his accounts of endless practice sessions, and moreover the disturbing frequency of serious injuries to players, raise challenging questions, not only about the intense competitiveness of college football, but about the nature of the game generally. Keeping track of twenty-eight players over five years is no mean feat, and one feels occasionally that Denlinger spreads his focus too widely. It is sometimes difficult to recall the details of each player, and consequently one cannot understand and relate to them on a personal level. Overall, however, For The Glory provides a soberly honest portrayal of the student athlete experience that allows one to appreciate the achievement of those who play football on a collegiate level.
Rating: 
Summary: For The GLory
Review: This is a great non-fiction book. I am in high school so i am searching for a college. i aslo play football wnd would wish to do so for a D-1A college program. this book was very helpful and showed me that D-1 football is not all fun and games. It was very interesting and i could not put it down. it was also very informative and tells may fun and exciting stories about life in the big time college football scene.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but was expecting more
Review: This was a fairly interesting book that provides some insight into the inner workings of a major college football program, but I didn't think it was very well written, and I had a hard time getting into it. It tried to tell so many different stories that it just seemed too jumpy to me. I thought "A Civil War" about the Army/Navy rivalry was a much better read and did a better job of making all the various characters interesting and bringing them to life. "For the Glory" was okay, but hardly stellar.
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