A fan’s notes, meticulous and proudly partisan, for Jets fans and devotees of the early NFL.
A longtime fan of the New York Jets debuts with a meticulous analysis of the Jets’ personnel who, on Jan. 12, 1969, defeated the highly favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
Lederer doesn’t ignore the actual game—he has an early chapter about it and a nine-page play-by-play account in the backmatter, and he and various Jets from the era rehearse key moments—but his focus remains on the team. With a true fan’s passion (that day, according to the author bio, “was the most exciting sports day in his life”), he employs scores of interviews and other necessary research to tell the stories of those who brought about the victory. Not wishing to write yet another tribute to Jets’ star quarterback Joe Namath, Lederer devotes several pages to each individual involved, dividing his chapters into traditional team divisions—coaches, offensive line, defensive line, etc. Although there are names that will resonate with many general sports fans—e.g., Namath, Weeb Ewbank, Don Maynard, Matt Snell—there are many others whom the author rescues from the virtual anonymity that awaits a nonheadliner upon retirement. We learn how each player or coach got to the Jets, what head coach Ewbank thought of them (he kept notes), how they performed in the AFL championship game and the Super Bowl, and what happened to them afterward. More than a few are no longer living, and some died from brain deterioration now recognized as a dire side effect of a career spent in football. Lederer doesn’t conceal the injury situation; neither does he condemn it at length. The text is a little too littered with clichés (“kept his eye on the prize,” “blowing his own horn”), and though he alludes about a dozen times to the “Heidi game,” he leaves its explanation to a writer of one of the forewords.
A fan’s notes, meticulous and proudly partisan, for Jets fans and devotees of the early NFL.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-279804-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
