January 4, 2006 For more information: Frank R. Scatoni 619-807-1887 frank@ventureliterary.com "No Kill Date" Venture Literary Sells Chronicle of College Football’s Most Famous Coach Rivalry to Warner Books On December 16, 2005, Greg Dinkin of Venture Literary sold the World rights to Michael Rosenberg’s Fight for the Heartland: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and the New American Playing Field to Rick Wolff at Warner Books. Fight for the Heartland is a fascinating look into the most legendary coaching rivalry in football history. It is the definitive story of the evolving relationship between two football legends, Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes and University of Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler—from coach-player, to mentor-protégé, to legend-upstart, and then to famous rivals. The disdain that Hayes had for his bitter rival—Michigan, “that school up North”—was so pronounced that he refused even to buy gas in the state because he didn’t want to give a cent to its local economy, telling an assistant coach that they would push their car across the border if they ran out of gas. In Ohio, this made Hayes a folk hero. Yet, in 1969, his assistant and friend Bo Schembechler left Ohio State to become the head coach at the University of Michigan, sparking the infamous “Ten-Year War” from 1969 to 1978. During this period, Hayes and Schembechler repeatedly faced each other with Big Ten titles and national championships on the line. But Fight for the Heartland goes beyond even the tumultuous relationship between these two men, putting the coaches in the context of their times, providing insight into the creation of the modern media culture, an era of consumerism, and the unprecedented boom of spectator sports at the end of the twentieth century. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, the University of Michigan was one of the most turbulent campuses on the national radar, with major protests against the war in Vietnam and a host of radical movements that at times shut down the school. Columbus, Ohio, home of Ohio State University, was built on three pillars of the American Establishment: the state government, which was based there; more than forty insurance companies that were headquartered there; and Ohio State football. Hayes, a friend of Richard Nixon and an outspoken conservative, epitomized the sensibilities of the city. Fight for the Heartland weaves stories of campus unrest, political change, and the socioeconomic transition from the counterculture to the consumer culture into the Hayes-Schembechler narrative. Michael Rosenberg is a rising star in sportswriting. At age thirty-one, he is an award-winning columnist for the Detroit Free Press and FOXSports.com, and his work has appeared in the 2005 edition of The Best American Sports Writing. Rosenberg has worked for the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Sacramento Bee. He has made television appearances on ESPN and CNN’s NewsNight with Aaron Brown, and is a frequent radio guest on programs such as The Dan Patrick Show and The Big Show, co-hosted by Ohio State alum Kirk Herbstreit. To learn more about Venture Literary, visit: www.ventureliterary.com. To learn more about Warner Books, visit: www.warnerbooks.com.