
The System
The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football
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Narrated by:
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Mark Deakins
About this listen
AN EXPLOSIVE AND REVELATORY PORTRAIT REPORTED FROM DEEP BEHIND THE SCENES OF BIG-TIME NCAA COLLEGE FOOTBALL: THE PASSION, THE THRILLING ACTION—AND THE SHOCKING REALITIES THAT LIE BENEATH THIS COLOSSAL, MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR BUSINESS
College football has never been more popular - or more chaotic. Millions fill 100,000-seat stadiums every Saturday; tens of millions more watch on television every weekend. The 2013 Discover BCS National Championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama had a viewership of 26.4 million people, second only to the Super Bowl. Billions of dollars from television deals now flow into the game; the average budget for a top-ten team is $80 million; top coaches make more than $3 million a year; the highest paid, more than $5 million.
But behind this glittering success are darker truths: “athlete-students” working essentially full-time jobs with no share in the oceans of money; players who often don’t graduate and end their careers with broken bodies; “janitors” who clean up player misconduct; football “hostesses” willing to do whatever it takes to land a top recruit; seven-figure black box recruiting slush funds. And this: Despite the millions of dollars pouring into the game, 90 percent of major athletic departments still lose money. Yet schools remain caught up in an ever-escalating “arms race” - at the expense of academic scholarships, facilities and faculty.
Celebrated investigative journalists Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian were granted unprecedented access during the 2012 season to programs at the highest levels across the country at a time of convulsive change in college football. Through dogged reporting, they explored every nook and cranny of this high-powered machine, and reveal how it operates from the inside out. The result: the system through the eyes of athletic directors and coaches, high-flying boosters and high-profile TV stars, five-star recruits and tireless NCAA investigators and the kids on whom the whole vast enterprise depends.
Both a celebration of the power and pageantry of NCAA football and a groundbreaking, thought-provoking critique of its excesses, The System is the definitive book on the college game.
©2013 Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian (P)2013 Random HouseListeners also enjoyed...
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I was a football coach and so is my son. The stories are told so well and bring back such wonderful memories.
- By Thomas J. Muench Jr. on 04-18-25
By: Joe Posnanski
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Boys Will Be Boys
- The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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They were America's Team - the high-priced, high-glamour, high-flying Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s, who won three Super Bowls and made as many headlines off the field as on it. Led by Emmitt Smith, the charismatic Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, and Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin, the Cowboys rank among the greatest of all NFL dynasties.
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This is a football book right?
- By Aaron on 12-07-09
By: Jeff Pearlman
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Hot Dog Money
- Inside the Biggest Scandal in the History of College Sports
- By: Guy Lawson
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner, Guy Lawson
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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When the federal government catches hotshot financial adviser Louis Martin “Marty” Blazer defrauding his NFL-player clients, it’s time to come clean. He has no reasonable defense. What he has is a bigger story to spill to the feds—that of a multibillion-dollar conspiracy that exploits the most talented college athletes and implicates one of the most popular entertainment industries in the nation. The DOJ is listening, and the truth could literally set Marty free. All he has to do is prove that the NCAA is a vast ongoing scam.
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Outstanding
- By Jake on 11-30-24
By: Guy Lawson
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Out of the Pocket
- Football, Fatherhood, and College GameDay Saturdays
- By: Kirk Herbstreit, Gene Wojciechowski - contributor
- Narrated by: Kirk Herbstreit
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Kirk Herbstreit is a reflection of the sport he loves, a reflection of his football-crazed home state of Ohio, where he was a high school star and Ohio State captain, and a reflection of another Ohio State football captain thirty-two years earlier: his dad Jim, who battled Alzheimer’s disease until his death in 2016.
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Great read for true college FB fans
- By Bbmc on 08-30-21
By: Kirk Herbstreit, and others
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The Football 100
- Sports Series, Book 1
- By: The Athletic, Dan Kaufman
- Narrated by: Jaime Lincoln Smith
- Length: 18 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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At The Athletic, home to the best newsroom in sports, this question would become a labor of love for dozens of the best football writers on the planet, including Mike Sando and Dan Pompei. Over the course of 100 riveting profiles—each drawing upon unparalleled access and superlative storytelling to offer intimate perspective on what made the greatest players tick—these writers reveal their findings. In the process, they also uncover the history of football.
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Many interesting stories of football greats
- By Donald J. Bentley on 02-16-25
By: The Athletic, and others
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The League
- How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire
- By: John Eisenberg
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The National Football League's current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start. In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time, the sport barely registered on the national scene. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.
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what a great book. loved it completely.
- By Daniel Mosca on 11-08-18
By: John Eisenberg
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Make a Choice
- When You Are at the Intersection of Happiness and Despair
- By: Jeff Benedict
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 3 hrs
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author Jeff Benedict has seen both good and bad in his career as a journalist. Some of the best are the extraordinary people he has met who have made deliberate choices to live happier lives despite the extreme hardship that each of them have faced. Although life will knock us down from time to time, this book is an important reminder that we all can make a choice to get back up, brush ourselves off, and keep pressing forward.
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Get inspired and go make the right choice
- By Russell Bernard on 07-19-17
By: Jeff Benedict
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Three Ring Circus
- Kobe, Shaq, Phil and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Brian Hutchison
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In the history of modern sport, there have never been two high-level teammates who loathed each other the way Shaquille O’Neal loathed Kobe Bryant and Kobe Bryant loathed Shaquille O’Neal. From public sniping and sparring, to physical altercations and the repeated threats of trade, it was warfare. And yet, despite eight years of infighting and hostility, by turns mediated and encouraged by coach Phil Jackson, the Shaq-Kobe duo resulted in one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history.
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Ok I've finished it and have more thoughts
- By Bobby S on 09-24-20
By: Jeff Pearlman
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Magic: The Life of Earvin “Magic” Johnson
- By: Roland Lazenby
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Roland Lazenby
- Length: 30 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive biography of the basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, from the highly respected, career sportswriter and author of Michael Jordan: The Life.
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The Definitive Book on Magic
- By Hebern on 03-04-24
By: Roland Lazenby
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Kingdom on Fire
- Kareem, Wooden, Walton, and the Turbulent Days of the UCLA Basketball Dynasty
- By: Scott Howard-Cooper
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Los Angeles native and longtime sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times, Scott Howard-Cooper draws on more than a hundred interviews and extensive access to many of the principal figures, including Wooden’s family, to deliver a rich narrative that reveals the turmoil at the heart of this storied college basketball program.
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Outstanding Biographical Work
- By Brian J. P. on 02-14-25
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Showtime
- Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 18 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman draws from almost 300 interviews to take the first full measure of the Lakers’ epic Showtime era. A dazzling account of one of America’s greatest sports sagas, Showtime is packed with indelible characters, vicious rivalries, and jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes stories of the players’ decadent Hollywood lifestyles. From the Showtime era’s remarkable rise to its tragic end - marked by Magic Johnson’s 1991 announcement that he had contracted HIV - Showtime is a gripping narrative of sports, celebrity, and 1980s-style excess.
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Offended at the style used to voice black characters.
- By NP on 01-15-22
By: Jeff Pearlman
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The Last Folk Hero
- The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.
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If you are a sports fan and over 35 years old, you have to listen/read this. Awesome!
- By betty sammons on 06-29-23
By: Jeff Pearlman
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The Legends Club
- Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The riveting inside story of college basketball's fiercest rivalry among three coaching legends - University of North Carolina's Dean Smith, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, and North Carolina State's Jim Valvano - by the king of college basketball writers, number-one New York Times best seller John Feinstein.
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Must read for any college basketball fan,
- By Rick on 07-02-24
By: John Feinstein
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Coach K
- The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski
- By: Ian O'Connor
- Narrated by: Kiff Vandenheuvel
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Mike Krzyzewski, known worldwide as “Coach K,” is a five-time national champion at Duke, the NCAA's all-time leader in victories with nearly 1,200, and the first man to lead Team USA to three Olympic basketball gold medals. Through unprecedented access to Krzyzewski’s best friends, closest advisers, fiercest adversaries, and generations of his players and assistants, three-time New York Times bestselling author Ian O’Connor takes you behind the Blue Devil curtain with a penetrating examination of the great, but flawed leader as he closes out his iconic career.
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Jon “Shayer”?
- By Lawdevil on 03-02-22
By: Ian O'Connor
What listeners say about The System
Highly rated for:
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- Alan
- 01-19-14
Even for those who are not college football fans.
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I never attended a power football school. I am not a great college football fan. Still I enjoyed this book. If you want to know of the problems facing all big time programs this is the book. If you want to know about the role of money and recruiting abuses this is your book. If you want facts demonstrating the hubris and complicity of the NCAA is the sport than this is your book. You can see the role of money in the sport that leads to both good and bad outcomes. Football success not only pays for other sports but it leads to increased alumni donations and greater student enrollments. But the NCAA is also about its money. It's about March Madness and selling game rights. As much as it is claimed the NCAA is run by its member colleges it's all about its money. You want examples? Read the book. Want to know the secret of a successful college football program? The coach. The coach then recruits players. To recruit players you need to invest in facilities. To make money you have to invest money but only about 20% of Division I schools are in the black.
Want to see scandals enumerated? They go through the usual recruiting violations, sex and academic scandals. How to avoid these scandals is also delineated. But it also shows how football is also the way out of the cycle of failure for many students. Even as urban recruits have gang associations and youth criminal records that they then bring with them as recruits to college campuses that adds the risk of crime and scandal to these programs there are many for whom academic scholarships are the way out of the cycle of poverty. College athletics are big business and Division I college football is huge business. This book dissects this business and does so without being boring, or peachy,
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- john lundberg
- 05-10-16
some programs disturbing, others commendable
What made the experience of listening to The System the most enjoyable?
I was impressed with the level of research done to back up the conclusions drawn and found some programs such as BYU and their support structures impressive, and others downright deplorable, Tennessee etc. Coaches seem to be either tyrannical dictators, Mike Leach, no thanks... not for me or my boys, while others seem to be truly invested in the athletes and or institution, Saban at Alabama, Bronco now at U of VA.
What did you like best about this story?
Research
Have you listened to any of Mark Deakins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
no
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The story of Kyle Van Noy at BYU was fascinating and downright inspirational while the system at Tennessee was very disturbing. The sketch drawn of Mike Leach's character is one that leaves a lot to be desired. Big money has really corrupted both individuals and some institutions.
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- Lewis Preston
- 03-08-20
The System
I enjoyed listening to “The System” and how well narrated the book was overall. Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian give you an in-depth and inside look at college football and the high price and high stakes for success on and off the field. I look forward to a follow-up book as the money in collegiate athletics has grown exponentially since 2013.
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- brent lloyd
- 04-07-21
Insightful But Uneven
The System is a book that makes it immediately clear that a significant amount of research was put into telling stories that illustrate the world around college football and how the world operates. Benedict and Keteyian use stories from the world of college football to give the reader an accurate picture of how football operates and how players, coaches, administration and just average students get caught up and used by the system in both negative and beneficial ways. These stories excellently outline the scandals that have engulfed schools like Tennessee and their brief employment of Lane Kiffin, and Mike Leach and the end of his illustrious tenure at Texas Tech, exploring the cause and reaction of figures in the football world and what aspects have come back to negatively affect those who had previously relied on them. The stories also do well to illustrate the culture of football, exploring how a school’s identity and pride can be caught up in the sport and how it can affect a school in negative ways such as paying a coach more than any other public employee in the state. Benedict and Keteyian do an excellent job of showing how these actions that should be strange are actually considered normal because of the culture around football in college. And perhaps most importantly, the authors do an excellent job of illustrating and describing how players get caught up and used by this system, and how it affects them.
That all being said, the book still has flaws, for although it is largely billed as an inside look at the glory but also the problems of college football, there are times in which this book tells stories about players and coaches and administrators that glamorize the system, leading to a strange conflict in which it will appear at one moment to be critiquing the system of college athletics, and the very next chapter it may seem to be praising college athletics and many of the aspects that have been previously described as negative. There will be times the book seems to criticize the spending on coaches or the attitude of coaches, only to turn around and celebrate such figures as Nick Saban, Bronco Mendenhall, and Leach. This shift in tone can lead to inconsistency on exactly what the aim for the book is and what the goal of the authors exactly was. Nonetheless, this is an interesting book that provides insights into how the system operates and how it can lead to both glory and notoriety, as well as infamy and disreputation. An excellent listen for all those interested in the nitty gritty of the sport, and in general a great work by these two authors.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Mike
- 12-07-16
mike c
great insight into college football. highly recommend for any football fan or person intrigued by collegiate sports.
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- Brice Kauffman
- 12-18-22
Some Interesting Info, but Felt Abit Sporadic
This book was interesting if you are a college football fan, but it was not what I was expecting. Overall there did not seem to be a master storyline or timeline or narrative that tied together each chapter. Instead, it felt like some disjointed information that left the reader wondering why certain stories were included and wondering how it was tied to other chapters except that it pertains to the game of football. Admittedly, my expectations were high when I read the title. I don't think the book truly was a cohesive wholistic evaluation of the college football system. I wish I could rate this book higher. Perhaps an updated version should be produced that ties what is happening today back to what was happening then in some interconnected way?
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- W Perry Hall
- 01-23-14
Gripping Inside Look at an Industry to Itself
If you have any interest in college football, you should read "The System," a spectacular and sobering look at College Football, as a Sport and a Huge Multi-Billion$ Business, that:
Explores each of more than a dozen hot and/or intriguing topics in college football;
By way of an illustrative story to humanize it, much like the Michael Lewis method;
Written by respected and gritty reporters who were granted a year of behind-scenes access and ability to interview coaches, ADs, athletes, academic administration, boosters, students, prosecutors, NCAA; and, who
Crafted an astounding collage of The System to give the reader both good and bad, so you can form your own opinions, conclusions and, if nothing else, see the sport in a different light.
I highly recommend it.
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3 people found this helpful
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- techard
- 10-01-13
Very interesting behind the scenes look!
If you could sum up The System in three words, what would they be?
Somebody's Getting Paid!
Which scene was your favorite?
Recruitment of Kyle Van Noy and the "walk-on" Ziggy Ansah.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
There seems to be a lot of connections to BYU and more than its share of the chapters. It actually seems to paint them as the only team out there with a honest program. Some of the information about College Coaches doesn't surprise me, but the amounts of money they are talking about for football vs the rest of the University is unbelievable. Its no wonder the students want to get paid!
Any additional comments?
I really liked the way each chapter looks at a different aspect of the system. It was very well written and included lots of great behind the scenes stories about Kevin Leach situation at Texas Tech and Saban's decision to coach at Alabama.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-09-17
Interested on college athletics
Great resource with real stories of college athletics for anyone interested in this field. Worth the read.
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- Nathan & Kira Huggins
- 05-15-15
Great book with tons of insight
I really enjoyed the book and all the different angles discussed. I now look at college football differently because of it. If you want to keep an idyllic view of college football, steer clear.
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