What I’ve Been Reading: Deception Point

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5Mar 2017
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What I’ve Been Reading: Deception Point

Back in 2001, before the world went nuts for The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown wrote a political, science thriller named Deception Point. I truly haven’t been a huge fan of the Robert Langdon series, although I find the involved pseudo-history interesting. The reason I’m not a fan of the Langdon series translates directly to Deception Point, too.

Deception Point starts with the premise that NASA has discovered a meteorite buried under 300 years’ worth of snow and ice on the Milne Ice Shelf in the Arctic. Not only that, but the meteorite contains evidence of extraterrestrial life. This is, of course, a huge discovery for NASA. There are all kinds of scientific, historical, and political ramifications. The female protagonist, Rachel Sexton, is a government official who happens to be the daughter of a U.S. senator who happens to be embroiled in a tight race for the presidency, and Rachel gets sent to the Arctic to investigate. Action ensues.

The aforementioned issue I have with Brown’s writing is his insistence on clean, stilted dialogue. Robert Langdon, Rachel Sexton, and virtually every other character speak like they’re writing a research paper for a Master’s degree. There is no chummy banter, no natural relaxation at any point. For the entirety of the series of events in each book, every character is at the top of his or her game for fear that someone might notice an absence of a five-syllable word in even one sentence.

The first half of the book did actually have me intrigued. Brown is very good at setting up cliffhangers. The setting, the premise, and the political maneuverings are all very interesting. There’s a little bit of a House of Cards thing going on at times. But the dialogue and the conclusion left something to be desired.

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13Jan 2017
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What I’ve Been Reading: NFL Confidential by Johnny Anonymous

NFL Confidential by Johnny Anonymous intrigued me from the beginning. Not only was it touted as an anonymous tell-all book from the “gutters of football,” but it was quickly rumored to have been written by one David Molk. Michigan fans know Molk as a former Wolverines lineman who won the Rimington Trophy for the nation’s best center in 2011. Despite writing it anonymously, several people dug into some of the facts and determined a lot of the storylines matched the Philadelphia Eagles and their backup center.

I have to say that my enthusiasm for reading the book faded rather quickly. Johnny Anonymous comes off as a self-righteous, hypocritical meathead. He rails against the establishment repeatedly for treating players like dirt. He says he hates football. He insults other players’ behavior. And yet he buys into all of those things in one way or another. The stereotypes that he claims to hate actually describe him well in many ways. I won’t get into the specifics in case you want to read the book yourself. Is he the worst guy on the team? No. But maybe that’s not saying much.

There’s not a ton of juicy stuff here because the author keeps things anonymous, so he uses pseudonyms for all of his coaches, teammates, and family members. He also doesn’t talk much about X’s and O’s; though I didn’t expect that, it would have been a plus.

My biggest issue with the book is the overall sense of dislike for everything and everyone around him. He truly seems not to appreciate any of the people around him, except his mother (who died when he was young) and perhaps his father. Girlfriends, teammates, coaches, etc. all come in for embarrassment and insults. He seems like an unhappy person, which is understandable when your mother dies at a very young age. And while he’s not specifically asking readers to think how he thinks, that is sort of an underlying hope for any author: Maybe these people will agree with me. This theme is encapsulated toward the end of the book when a bunch of his teammates are griping, and he jumps in with a poorly conceived joke – but one that represents his attitude:

You know what I hate? Happy people.


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6Jan 2017
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What I’ve Been Reading: Bleachers by John Grisham

Bleachers by John Grisham is a short novel that talks about what many of us probably know from our younger days: high school football. Messina High School in Mississippi is historically a powerhouse program, and the legendary former coach, Eddie Rake, is on his death bed. The main protagonist is Neely Crenshaw, a former All-American quarterback from Messina who went on to play college ball but got injured. As Crenshaw and a host of other former players return to Messina to pay their final respects and attend the funeral, they start to reminisce about Rake and their glory days.

This was my first Grisham novel, even though he’s written a bunch of more popular legal thrillers and such. He supposedly played some quarterback in high school, and I wonder how autobiographical the story is (though Grisham was not a star QB). I don’t know how your relationship was with your high school coach – whether it’s football or some other sport – or your band director or your academic team coach, but I revered mine. I’ve played for and worked for coaches I didn’t think of so highly, but I couldn’t really relate to these former players, who had a love-hate relationship with Rake. I also thought some of the stories from high school ball were a little over the top, which I didn’t really expect from Grisham. Maybe they’re not so out-of-this-world for football in the deep south. Someday I would like to spend some time in Texas or Louisiana or Mississippi in the fall and see how those communities support their football teams.

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22Dec 2016
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What I’ve Been Reading: Swing Your Sword

Swing Your Sword by Mike Leach and Bruce Feldman is somewhat an autobiography of Mike Leach, the current coach at Washington State. It’s also a big f*** you to Texas Tech, a school that he badmouths repeatedly, including the higher-ups. Of course, we all know by now that Leach was fired by the Red Raiders for reasons that were, well, questionable. Much of it revolves around his treatment of the son of Craig James, but Leach makes the point that it might have been financially driven, too.

The book flows smoothly from chapter to chapter, and it doesn’t get bogged down too much in the politics of coaching at Texas Tech. I think it was partly a vehicle for Leach to repair his reputation, partly a way for him to get back at the administration in Lubbock, and partly a way for Bruce Feldman to tell a very interesting story about modern college football. Leach is a bit of an odd duck, but I really respect him as a coach because he does pretty well with some so-so talent. I wish there was a little more X’s and O’s in here, but he does devote a chapter to X’s and O’s stuff, and he also talks frequently about the logistics of coaching. The book almost beats you over the head with the question “Why?” Why run these plays? Why run these drills? Why build your offense this way? Why have these rules? I have seen coaches doing drills, setting rules, etc. that don’t seem to have practical reasons, and it ends up wasting time or energy that could be put toward more useful things.

I thought it was a very good book for someone like me to read. As coaches, we need to be eclectic and take a couple things from various places that we can apply to our own teams and lives. This gave me a couple tools that I can use going forward, and it was entertaining in the meantime. I don’t follow Leach much now that he’s in the Pacific Northwest at Washington State, but he is coming to a clinic near me that I’m going to try to attend this off-season. I’m looking forward to that opportunity if I can make it happen.

30Jul 2016
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What I’ve Been Reading: Those Guys Have All the Fun

Those Guys Have All the Fun, by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, came out several years ago and immediately landed on my reading list . . . but I didn’t get to it until this summer. It tells the story of ESPN, all the way from its founding in 1979 up through 2010. Miller and Shales wrote a similar book about Saturday Night Live a few years ago, and the style is the same. The narrative moves chronologically from beginning to end, and aside from an occasional paragraph or page to summarize events, the story is told in the words of the numerous parties involved. The authors got access to the big-time on-air personalities over the years (Chris Berman, Bob Ley, Keith Olbermann, Dan Patrick, Linda Cohn, Tom Jackson, Rece Davis, Tony Kornheiser, Jim Rome, etc.), as well as various celebrities and producers who have interacted with the network and, more specifically, SportsCenter.

There were times toward the beginning of the book that were rather slow, because I wasn’t familiar with some of the events that occurred or the names involved in the late 1970s, early 1980s, etc. However, after about one-third of the book, I tore through the rest. As a kid I would wake up, come downstairs, and eat breakfast/get dressed for school while watching SportsCenter. Not just for a few minutes, but for about 1.5 hours. I was enamored with the way sports were presented by some of the announcers, and I couldn’t get enough of the highlights and stats, even when the show turned over at the top of the hour and repeated itself. So I looked forward to hearing about the behind-the-scenes action.

The slow parts for me were the business side of things, because quite a bit of time is spent discussing the negotiations with cable companies, buying rights to sporting events, the merger of ESPN with ABC/Disney, etc. What I found most enthralling was the discussion of the dynamics of what announcers were put on Monday Night Football, how the guys in the booth interacted, the friction between personalities, and so on. I didn’t realize at the time how controversial Tony Kornheiser was on MNF, mainly because I liked him and just thought of him as entertainment, not a football analyst. I can see where his personality might get in the way of other, more serious football announcers, but I reached a point a while ago where the commentators became somewhat superfluous and I could watch a game without the sound.

The book isn’t a quick read at all, but if you were into ESPN and SportsCenter during the years when business was booming, I highly recommend it.