Across Many Fields: A Season of Ohio High School Football

Across Many Fields captures the essence of Ohio football by chronicling the 2001 high school season with a lively combination of pictures and insights. This book observes high school football less as a sport and more as a cultural event through which a wide variety of people take meaning. Last fall, writer Christopher Butler and photographer Jennifer Rothchild traveled across Ohio, visited schools in all six high school divisions, and observed big-city and small-town teams. All told, they watched 45 games in 15 weeks, and conducted nearly 150 interviews. The book takes readers from first-game expectations, through mid-season highs and lows, and ends with the two-day, six-game championship weekend that dominates state news headlines every first weekend in December. The 160-page hardback book is driven mainly by the 261 full-color and black and white photos which capture players, coaches, referees, bands, cheerleaders, teachers, parents, pep clubs, trainers, and paramedics. ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit, former quarterback at Centerville High School and Ohio State University, provides the foreword for the book as well.