Enlightening for those interested in performance psychology, kinetic motion analysis and the “competitive temperament” of...
A yearlong, behind-the-scenes look at the booming—and lucrative—business of coaching upcoming quarterbacks.
Across all sports, coaching is a $5.9 billion industry. Fox Sports’ senior football commentator Feldman (Meat Market: Inside the Smash-Mouth World of College Football Recruiting, 2008, etc.) examines the elite #TDFB high school football quarterback training camp (and related programs) created by ex–NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer—what Dilfer calls a “holistic coaching ecosystem that unites coaches and expands their influence”—for athletes and independent coaches. The author chronicles the progress and development (and emotional immaturity) of frenetic, loose cannon QB (Feldman calls them QBs throughout the book) Johnny Manziel from his time at Texas A&M University, his performance at the high-stakes NFL Combine and first-round selection in the NFL draft. Feldman also examines the career of veteran QB coach George Whitfield Jr., the “QB Whisperer,” who has trained several star NFL quarterbacks. Credit Feldman for inserting himself in camp and sharing a variety of inside observations—e.g., the most desirable characteristic scouts look for in a high school recruit isn't hand size, arm strength or even accuracy, but an intangible “magic,” what Dilfer calls “Dude Qualities.” It’s the ability to thrive in high-pressure situations, how you “own the environment.” In a chapter Feldman amusingly and fittingly titles “The Pageant World For Boys,” he reports on how parents will pay $700 per hour for one-on-one coaching and that a year of tutoring at a QB camp can cost $60,000. Indeed, access to exclusive coaching appeals to “QB dads,” whom he describes as Type-A, myopic and even nutty. Feldman reveals Dilfer's vision for his football enterprises as well as his frequent, pompous declarations, such as describing coach Whitfield as “a rock star in the QB space.”
Enlightening for those interested in performance psychology, kinetic motion analysis and the “competitive temperament” of alpha males.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0553418453
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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