Will appeal to readers with subscriptions to both Guideposts and Guns & Ammo.
Pastor, insurance salesman and now-writer Drotos reflects on what he’s learned about getting through the hard times (divorce, bankruptcy, etc.) by hunting white-tailed deer in the Virginia woods.
In bite-sized anecdotes intended for reading in the deer stand, Drotos shares memories of his hunting life, beginning at age 18 when he killed his first buck. Amusingly, he relates getting suckered into buying a time-share for its hunting provisions and suffering a blow to his ego when he’s out-hunted by a first-timer. There are also cautionary tales, as when, seemingly in a fugue state, Drotos shoots and kills four deer, violating game law. “My definition of integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody is watching,” he writes. “I failed that day.” Now in his mid-40s, the author says his love for hunting has only increased—along with his tendency to find moral instruction in the sport. In practiced Sunday-school style, Drotos treats his hunting stories as parables from which one can easily draw the conclusion: “Life is nothing more than seasons,” “Life is never what you expect,” and “[L]ife is not a straight highway. It is more like a winding road.” Such bromides often feel at odds with the events described, as when Drotos writes of landing a lucky shot into a deer’s brain through the ear: “In life when you get your opportunity, pull the trigger (metaphorically speaking) to make your dream come true.” Some readers may also pause over Drotos’ tendency to see divine intervention in the oddest places. When a coyote crosses his path (and he kills the animal), the author calls it a “divine wink from God assuring me that He will be with me in both the good times and the bad ones.” The final section of the book is filled with lined pages in which readers can write their own hunting journal.
Will appeal to readers with subscriptions to both Guideposts and Guns & Ammo.Pub Date: April 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-1466411678
Page Count: 140
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.
The Chicago Bulls stalwart tells all—and then some.
Hall of Famer Pippen opens with a long complaint: Yes, he’s a legend, but he got short shrift in the ESPN documentary about Michael Jordan and the Bulls, The Last Dance. Given that Jordan emerges as someone not quite friend enough to qualify as a frenemy, even though teammates for many years, the maltreatment is understandable. This book, Pippen allows, is his retort to a man who “was determined to prove to the current generation of fans that he was larger-than-life during his day—and still larger than LeBron James, the player many consider his equal, if not superior.” Coming from a hardscrabble little town in Arkansas and playing for a small college, Pippen enjoyed an unlikely rise to NBA stardom. He played alongside and against some of the greats, of whom he writes appreciatively (even Jordan). Readers will gain insight into the lives of characters such as Dennis Rodman, who “possessed an unbelievable basketball IQ,” and into the behind-the-scenes work that led to the Bulls dynasty, which ended only because, Pippen charges, the team’s management was so inept. Looking back on his early years, Pippen advocates paying college athletes. “Don’t give me any of that holier-than-thou student-athlete nonsense,” he writes. “These young men—and women—are athletes first, not students, and make up the labor that generates fortunes for their schools. They are, for lack of a better term, slaves.” The author also writes evenhandedly of the world outside basketball: “No matter how many championships I have won, and millions I have earned, I never forget the color of my skin and that some people in this world hate me just because of that.” Overall, the memoir is closely observed and uncommonly modest, given Pippen’s many successes, and it moves as swiftly as a playoff game.
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982165-19-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.
Prolific writer Benedict has long blended two interests—sports and business—and the Patriots are emblematic of both. Founded in 1959 as the Boston Patriots, the team built a strategic home field between that city and Providence. When original owner Billy Sullivan sold the flailing team in 1988, it was $126 million in the hole, a condition so dire that “Sullivan had to beg the NFL to release emergency funds so he could pay his players.” Victor Kiam, the razor magnate, bought the long since renamed New England Patriots, but rival Robert Kraft bought first the parking lots and then the stadium—and “it rankled Kiam that he bore all the risk as the owner of the team but virtually all of the revenue that the team generated went to Kraft.” Check and mate. Kraft finally took over the team in 1994. Kraft inherited coach Bill Parcells, who in turn brought in star quarterback Drew Bledsoe, “the Patriots’ most prized player.” However, as the book’s nimbly constructed opening recounts, in 2001, Bledsoe got smeared in a hit “so violent that players along the Patriots sideline compared the sound of the collision to a car crash.” After that, it was backup Tom Brady’s team. Gridiron nerds will debate whether Brady is the greatest QB and Bill Belichick the greatest coach the game has ever known, but certainly they’ve had their share of controversy. The infamous “Deflategate” incident of 2015 takes up plenty of space in the late pages of the narrative, and depending on how you read between the lines, Brady was either an accomplice or an unwitting beneficiary. Still, as the author writes, by that point Brady “had started in 223 straight regular-season games,” an enviable record on a team that itself has racked up impressive stats.
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982134-10-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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