HOW FOOTBALL BECAME FOOTBALL

The real challenge of this cover was capturing in simple and iconic terms the author's deeply-researched thesis on why football became so beloved to the imagination of the American public. I often work from most complicated to simplest, trying out multiple images as seen on an early comp, then stripping it all down to it’s essence. It was something of dumb luck that the Library of Congress had this handsome photo of Native American athlete Jim Thorpe. An early version with him was just too weather-beaten to have any impact (not to mention I somewhat loathed my own type treatment), but this one perfectly captured his heroic status and radiated and those early ideals of the sport that continues on as a national obsession to this day.