[bksvol-discuss] Wishlist: A Few Seconds of Panic
- From: "Shelley L. Rhodes" <guidinggolden@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:12:12 -0500
A FEW SECONDS OF PANIC
by Stefan Fatsis
FROM THE BOOK JACKET:
In "Word Freak," Stefan Fatsis infiltrated the insular
world of competitive Scrabble players, ultimately
achieving an expert-level ranking. Now he infiltrates a
strikingly different subculture--pro football. After more
than a year working out with a strength coach and
polishing his craft with a gurulike kicking coach, Fatsis
molded his fortyish body into one that could stand up--
barely--to the rigors of NFL training. And for three
months he became a Denver Bronco. He trained with the team
and lived with the players. He was given a locker and
uniforms emblazoned with #9. He performed all the drills
and regimens required of other kickers. He was unlike his
teammates in some ways--most notably, his livelihood was
not on the line. But he became remarkably like them in
many ways: he risked crippling injury just as they did, he
endured the hazing that befalls all rookies, he slogged
through two-a-day practices in blistering heat. Not since
George Plimpton's stint as a Detroit Lion more than forty
years ago has a writer tunneled so deeply into the NFL.
At first, the players tolerated Fatsis, or treated him
like a mascot, but over time they began to think of him as
one of them. And he began to think like one of them. Like
the other Broncos--like all elite athletes--he learned to
perfect a motion through thousands of repetitions, to play
through pain, to silence the crowd's roar, to banish self
doubt.
While Fatsis honed his mind and drove his body past
exhaustion, he communed with every classic athletic type--
the affable alpha male, the overpaid brat, the youthful
phenom, the savvy veteran--and a welter of bracingly
atypical players as well: a fullback who invokes Aris-
totle, a quarterback who embraces yoga, a tight end who
takes creative writing classes in the off-season. Fatsis
also witnessed the hidden machinery of a top-flight
football franchise, from the God-is-in-the-details
strategizing of legendary coach Mike Shanahan to the icy
calculation with which the front office makes or breaks
careers.
Shelley L. Rhodes, M.A., VRT
And Guinevere: Golden Lady Guide Dog
guidinggolden@xxxxxxxxx
Guide Dogs for the Blind
Alumni Association
www.guidedogs.com
The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of
their act as violence;
rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness.
The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever
committed. -Gil Bailie, author and lecturer (b. 1944)
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