Randy Snow
Randy Snow is a freelance football writer from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Since 2003, he has covered the Arena Football League, arenafootball2, United Indoor Football, the Continental Indoor Football League and the All American Football League. He is a regular columnist on ArenaFan.com and is also a contributor to OurSportsCentral.com. Randy has been a member of the Arena Football League Writer´s Association since 2005 and has had over 200 football related articles posted on the Internet. He is also the organizer of "Operation Gridiron Airlift" which is collecting footballs that will be sent to our troops serving overseas. Randy can be reached at randysnow22@yahoo.com
Articles by Randy Snow
October 28, 2009
The American Football League was founded in 1960 and for 10 years it existed as a seperate league, challenging the the NFL for players on the field, and in the courts.
October 02, 2009
The College Football Hall of Fame will be moving to Atlanta sometime in 2012. But I feel it should remain in South Bend.
August 02, 2009
The book Field of Valor profiles the five college football Heisman Trophy winners who played for the service academies. Doc Blanchard, Glenn Davis and Pete Dawkins played at West Point for the Army and Joe Bellino and Roger Staubach played at Annapolis for the Navy.
June 13, 2009
In her 2008 book, "Boots on the Ground by Dusk," Pat Tillman's mother, Mary, accuses the Army of covering up some of the facts surrounding the death of her son in Afghanistan in 2004. The book is also a poignant retelling of Pat's life as well as his football career in high school, college and the NFL.
May 15, 2009
George Gipp was the first All American football player at Notre Dame in 1920. While Knute Rockne is buried not too far from the Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana, the final resting place of "The Gipper" is a little harder to find.
March 25, 2009
In the 2008 book, "Thunder on the Tundra," author Lew Freedman tells the story of the 2007 Barrow Alaska High School football team. It was only the second season for the team, which is located 300 miles above the Arctic Circle.
March 05, 2009
Pat Tillman never took the easy road when it came to getting where he wanted to go. As a high school, college and NFL player, he was always having to prove himself. And when he decided to leave the NFL after 9/11 to become an Army Ranger, he never looked back.
February 21, 2009
In the 2005 book, "The Big House: Fielding Yost and the Building of Michigan Stadium," author Robert M. Soderstrom tells the story of one of college football's most iconic figures and how he came to build one of the greatest stadiums in the counrty.
January 23, 2009
In the new book, "Passing Game," author Murray Greenberg tells the story of quarterback Benny Friedman, a two-time All-American at Michigan and a record setting player in the early days of the NFL.
December 20, 2008
The new book, "Loyal Sons" by Jim Lefebvre, tells the story of the 1924 Notre Dame football team. It was the senior season for the backfield known as The Four Horsemen and resulted in the first National Championship for the team from South Bend.
November 17, 2008
The new book, "The Galloping Ghost" by Gary Andrew Poole tells the story of one of the legends of college and pro football, Red Grange. From his college football days at the University of Illinois to his time in the NFL with the Chicago Bears, this book is a must read for anyone who wants to know the true story of a football icon.
October 18, 2008
In the book, "The Way We Played the Game," author John Armstrong takes readers throught the 1903 season of the Benton Harbor, Michigan high school football team. The book is a fictionalized account based on a true story.
September 09, 2008
College football is not just played in the United States. Canada also has a college football system, which is similar to the style played by the Canadian Football League.
September 05, 2008
The 2004 book, The All Americans, tells the story of four football players from the 1941 Army-Navy game. Author Lars Anderson follows their stories from the gridiron to the battle fields of World War II.
August 07, 2008
Leatherheads of the North is a new book that chronicles the 1926-27 Duluth Eskimos of the NFL.
July 20, 2008
The College Football Hall of Fame enshrined 20 new members on July 19, 2008. The Class of 2008 included former Boston College QB Doug Flutie and current Penn State head coach Joe Paterno.
June 21, 2008
On November 9, 1912, linebacker Dwight D. Eisenhower of the Army Academy squared off against the great Jim Thorpe of the Carlisle Indian School. The result of their encounter on the college football field that day would lead one to the white house and the other to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
February 27, 2008
The Real All Americans, by Sally Jenkins, tells the story of Richard Henry Pratt and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. The school took children from the reservations and educated them in the ways of the white man from 1879-1918. It also had a heck of a football team that prduced one of the greatest athletes of all time, Jim Thorpe.
January 30, 2008
In the new book, Notre Dame and The Game That Changed Football, author Frank P. Maggio examines the early years of Notre Dame Football from 1913-1917. During this time, the team was coached by Jesse C. Harper, who preceeded Knute Rockne as head coach of the team. Harper set the school on its path to greatness with his desire for perfection and use of a relatively new aspect of the game, the forward pass.
January 08, 2008
It used to be that rushing for 2,000 yards in a single season was a rare and extraordinary achievement. But during the recently completed college football season, a total of three running backs in Division I-A, Ray Rice of Rutgers, Kevin Smith of the University of Central Florida and Matt Forte of T...
December 15, 2007
In the new book Forward Pass: The Play That Saved Football, author Philip Brooks explores the origins of an aspect of football that, today, we all take for granted. After all, what would the game of football be without the passing game? But there was a time when the forward pass was not an officiall...
December 04, 2007
Eagles’ Wings: An Uncommon Story of World War II recounts the stories of two American Prisoners of War during World War II as well as what happened to them after they returned home. The two men, Larry Jenkins and Jack Curtis, were childhood friends who grew up in Battle Creek, Michigan, but lost to...
November 27, 2007
Not to be confused with the Adam Sandler movie of the same name, The Water Boy is a new book that recounts the life and career of Bob Ackles, a football executive who’s resume includes stops in the Canadian Football League, the National Football League and the Xtreme Football League.
In 1953, at...
November 24, 2007
This time of year, college football in the United States is just beginning to wind down. For some Division I-A team’s, their seasons are already over and the lower divisions within the NCAA have already begun their playoffs.
But up in Canada, the championship game of Canadian Interuniversity Spor...
November 06, 2007
Lansing, Michigan author Ted Kluck’s third book, Game Time: Inside College Football, is a collection of original stories on a variety of college football subjects and individuals. Collectively, they paint an interesting picture of what goes on behind the scenes in the world of college football.
...
October 30, 2007
On Sunday (October 28), the NFL played a regular season game in London, England at Wembley Stadium. The New York Giants defeated the Miami Dolphins 13-10. Playing overseas is nothing new for the NFL. It has been playing games all around the world for many years. There have been American Bowl preseas...
October 18, 2007
Author John Grisham is best known for writing intense courtroom/legal dramas. His previous best sellers include The Firm, The Pelican Brief and A Time to Kill.
However, in his new book, Playing for Pizza, Grisham departs from his usual style of writing to tell the story of a fictional NFL quarte...
October 06, 2007
When Division I-AA Appalachian State shocked the college football world by beating the #5 ranked Michigan Wolverines earlier this season, it brought to light something that I have been saying for many years; There is a lot more to college football than just the teams in the Top 25.
But whenever ...
September 14, 2007
It is not always easy to give up something that you love. For many men who played football in high school or college, the desire to relive the experience and to be a part of a team once again does not die easily. So when a new indoor football league made its debut last year, many former players were...
August 06, 2007
For football fans in the United States, the wait is almost over. The NFL preseason is right around the corner and the high school and college football seasons will soon follow.
But just north of the border, in Canada, football season began back in June. That was when the eight-team Canadian Foot...
February 10, 2007
It’s about time!
The recent selection of former Detroit Lions tight end Charlie Sanders to the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2007 was, in my opinion, long overdue. I have been saying for years that he deserved to be in Canton and many longtime Lions fans have felt the same way.
I saw hi...
December 28, 2006
For the second year in a row, I attended the Motor City Bowl at Ford Field in Detroit with my kids. As a bowl game, it may not measure up to the history and tradition of the Orange Bowl, the Cotton Bowl or the Rose Bowl, but it was still a lot of fun to attend and, for me, it’s a lot closer to home....
November 12, 2006
As a veteran of the Armed Forces, and a football fan, I recently had the good fortune of being able to celebrate both aspects of my life on the same day.
You see, Veteran’s Day (November 11) fell on a Saturday this year, and Saturdays in November mean one thing, college football.
For the thir...
September 06, 2006
Ah, Labor Day. A day set aside each year to honor the American worker. It is a day filled with parades, cookouts or maybe even a trip to the beach. It also marks the unofficial end of summer and the dreaded return to school for many kids.
Labor Day is treated pretty much the same up in Canada as...
September 02, 2006
The buying and selling of sports memorabilia is big business these days and many collectors specialize in autographed memorabilia. But how can you be certain that the autographed baseball or football you just bought is really authentic?
Sure, many items come with a certificate of authenticity, b...
August 15, 2006
In the world of college football, there is no greater coaching legend than Knute Rockne of Notre Dame. Born in Voss, Norway on March 4, 1888, Rockne immigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of five. He played football for Notre Dame while he was a student at the school and then we...