ATHLETES WHO ROCK

Journalist and author Bishara seeks out the secret skillset behind successful athletes/musicians in this collection of interviews.

It’s hard to make it as a professional musician, and it’s perhaps even more difficult to make it as a professional athlete. Hardest of all is managing to do both. In this book, Bishara, who’s written for CNN, ESPN, and the Guardian, profiles 15 athletes/musicians who’ve achieved success in both arenas. These aren’t just people who’ve parlayed their superstardom into making a few disposable records, either, à la Shaquille O’Neal or Terry Bradshaw. Bishara is specifically interested in those who’ve demonstrated unquestionable success in music, such as winning awards or selling out prestigious venues. His list includes well-known figures, such as Bernie Williams, the Yankees’ All-Star center fielder and Grammy-nominated guitarist; Damian Lillard, the rare NBA player whose hip-hop efforts have been met with critical plaudits; and Yannick Noah, the tennis legend who enjoyed a second career as a pop star in his native France. There are athletes readers may not have heard of, as well, such as an English cricketer-turned–rock musician and a San Jose skateboarder who switched to jazz guitar. Bishara is eager to learn the secrets behind these remarkable career transitions, and he soon realizes a lot of the things that help make a successful athlete help in creating music. Flow, improvisation, grit, poise: All these things contribute to a winning performance, be it on the ski slope, tennis court, baseball diamond, or concert stage.

The book is well constructed, with many full-color photos by the author and others and a handsome layout. Bishara is a competent interviewer, though his bubbly writing skills are on better display during the profiles that proceed each interview: “For the past seven years this has been [Swedish footballer Kevin Walker’s] life, a situation he compares to living like Batman and his alter ego Bruce Wayne. One day he performs as a veteran leader in Sweden’s top tier of football, and the next as one of the county’s most endearing singer-songwriters.” The most engaging stories are the lesser-known ones, such as the case of Kyle Turley, an NFL lineman–turned–country musician who opens up about the mental health issues he’s experienced as a result of his many career concussions. Others have insights into specific elements of success; as Bronson Arroyo, a World Series–winning pitcher–turned-guitarist, puts it, it’s all about getting in the zone: “It’s where you’re so comfortable in a situation that would normally bother someone else but isn’t bothering you at all. You’re just having a pleasant time inside of what seems like it could be a very nerve-racking environment.” Despite the author’s insistence otherwise, several of the musicians profiled, such as Arroyo or the New York Liberty’s Essence Carson, are trading mostly on their athletic fame and haven’t accomplished much in music. Even so, the book succeeds as an investigation of a truly impressive phenomenon.

A varied but reliably intriguing book of conversations on success in the arts and in competition.