What goes into the ``X's'' and ``O's''—the art and the science—of football? That's the subject of King's workmanlike exploration of the intellectual and emotional makeup of those who play and coach the game. Through interviews with, and off-the-field observation of, quarterback Boomer Esiason, Dallas coach Jimmy Johnson, Buffalo defensive end Bruce Smith, Detroit running back Barry Sanders, and others, King (The Season After, 1989) presents an interesting—and not always flattering—psychological profile of the pro footballer. Esiason claims that brazen self-confidence and lust for power are necessary to the quarterback, player of the ``hardest position in American sports.'' Being the ``field general'' means being able to ``read'' a defense, to know where everyone is on the field (regardless of where they're supposed to be), and to make a rational decision—all in 1.5 seconds. It is, Esiason says, like trying to learn Chinese ``with people running at you trying to knock your ass off.'' Smith, the NFL's premier pass-rusher, states that ``pass-rushing is an art. It's also a car accident.'' King analyzes Smith's prowess on the field and finds speed, reflexes, intelligence, instinct, experience, and sheer aggression at play. Meanwhile, Sanders is ``the best runner in the game,'' with his pass-catching and blocking ability making him one of the great ``multidimensional backs'' to play the sport. King attributes the development and necessity of multitalented backs to rule changes that opened up the passing game. Moving on to coaching, King contends that Johnson, who climbed into the Cowboys' saddle in 1989, is obsessive and domineering—traits perhaps required to maintain control over muscular, egotistical, well-paid athletes. When a backup player goes down with a serious injury, Johnson merely shrugs: ``Is feeling sorry for [him] gonna help us win? No. And remember something: My whole life revolves around us winning.'' A bit uneven, but fun for those who love the game.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-74704-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The adroit author (Open Net, 1987, etc.), Paris Review editor, and amateur jock who plays with the pros suits up once again to pitch horseshoes with George Bush and, incidentally, to pursue the elusive factor that makes champions out of mortals. Originally concocted a few years ago as a Whittle Communications advertising-supported giveaway, the text has been updated to acknowledge the Bush defeat in 1992, ``perhaps diminishing him as an avatar of the X Factor'' but not at all reducing the homage the author (a Democrat) pays his horseshoe opponent as A Swell Guy. Defeated once by then-president-elect Bush, Plimpton, before a return match, seeks the athletes' grail, the sovereign ingredient that produces winners. The teachings of an occasional Wall Street mogul like Henry Kravis and of a lot of sports figures, from Red Auerbach and Bill Russell to the sainted Vince Lombardi, are trotted out to raise the reader's diastolic and systolic pressures and to pump up the eager acolyte. Even as he essays his version of the usually plebeian self-help manual, the patrician persona of Plimpton, scion of the upper crust, is maintained. How could it be otherwise, with tales of the local yacht club tennis tournament and his grandparents' tennis court (where, at age eight, he was heckled by a parrot)? The coaches' pep talks and the country club locker room badinage may or may not aid the hoi polloi aching to enter ``the zone'' where no move is false- -it didn't help the author in his Camp David rematch with President Bush; he lost again. Win or lose, Plimpton writes with self-effacing humor and at least as much wit as wisdom; America's most famous professional dilettante doesn't demand to be taken too seriously.
Pub Date: March 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-393-03484-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Trekking and fishing what's left of the wilderness of the American West, Montgomery pronounces ``elegies for dead rivers'' but is hopeful for the ``few special trout left'' in the remote, unsullied streams of the high country. The last of the real West ``is more vertical than horizontal,'' writes Montgomery (The Way of the Trout, 1991): It's found in the mountains, at least a mile above sea level. Rivers such as the East Fork of the Bitterroot in Montana have been disfigured and diverted to provide rich grazing land. But even the East Fork has a tiny, unaltered tributary so conspicuously untouched that Montgomery ``can hardly bear to look at it anymore.'' As he traverses the West, he visits Utah's Green River and the Hoodoo Creek in Wyoming; crisscrosses the Lewis and Clark Trail in Montana; studies the ``mud volcanoes'' on the banks of the Yellowstone; hunts for arrowheads in Harney County, Oreg., near Steens Mountain; scorns the tourism of Jackson Hole, Wyo.; and fishes the Snake River ``to make the acquaintance of another wild western trout,'' an unclassified cutthroat. His digressions on the history of certain areas will prove of more interest to some than his often uninspired fishing sequences. He pauses for an eloquent reflection on the writer C.E.S. Wood, who, as aide-de-camp to Gen. O.O. Howard during his campaign against the Nez Perce, transcribed- -or perhaps authored—Chief Joseph's famous ``I Will Fight No More Forever'' speech. Montgomery also examines Gen. George Crook's frustrating battle at Rosebud Creek, when he simply ``called it a day...went back to Big Goose Creek, and started fishing'' even as Custer engaged the Sioux in a more famous battle. Interesting and informative, but Montgomery's prose often lacks the zest that informs the best nature writing. (6 line drawings, not seen)
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-671-79286-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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