Bearcats Rising: Rags to Division I Riches: How a Gridiron Minority Bludgeons Its Way into the Big Time

The University of Cincinnati’s football team has always been an after thought to sports fans in Cincinnati, Ohio. That all changed when Coach Brian Kelly came along and led the team to its first bowl game appearance in the program’s history. How did he do it? In Bearcats Rising, the story is told of how an old, dusty football program was brought back to life by a coach whose enthusiasm could set the world on fire. Sportswriter Josh Katzowitz takes a hard, in depth look at the history of the program from the early 1900’s to their 2008 Orange Bowl win and what he uncovers is a circus of a program that was in desperate need of a genius ringmaster and finally got one.