FitzFirst@Four, with Stu Wilson

FitzFirst@Four is a monthly discussion group, focused on the short stories of F Scott Fitzgerald. It meets at 4:00pm on the first Sunday of every month at Common Good Books. Events are free and open to the public.

This month’s guest is Stu Wilson, board chair of Fitzgerald in Saint Paul. He will provide background information on some of the historic rivalries that shaped the early days of college football.  Stu’s presentation will also include details from the legendary Princeton vs. Yale game of 1927 which was witnessed live by an estimated crowd of 80,000 spectators.  The epic “Yale Bowl” featured two highly-ranked college teams battling to seize possession of the top spot in the nation, and produced banner headlines in daily newspapers from coast to coast.

We’ll be discussing the short story “The Bowl,”  which can be found in The Short Stories of F Scott Fitzgerald , available now at Common Good Books.

The Bowl focuses on a fictional Princeton Tigers football star named Dolly Harlan. Fitzgerald’s short story was written in the fall when the famous “Yale Bowl” game of 1927 occurred, and was originally published in the Saturday Evening Post magazine on January 21, 1928.  The tale is told from the perspective of a trusted roommate, the less athletically gifted, Jeff Deering.  He observes the rise of football star Dolly Harlan and witnesses the psychological toll the pressure to perform, mixed with early celebrity status, has on the young athlete.