The topic of this book initially worried me; like, how much more is there to say about the most important position in sports? We know the names, have watched the games, and the stats are available at the touch of a button. Even Netflix is now synonymous with Quarterback. 

Enter Seth Wickersham. If you flip to the back of this book, there are pages and pages of sources. So many, that only a writer with a small army could do so much research. 

But then you start reading it. 

Wickersham was once a quarterback himself; a boy with a dream that wanted what all of us want, which is to feel what these men feel when there's a minute left on the clock and 80,000 watching your every move. 

The stories he tells are plentiful, and he never spends too long on one. In a "swipe up video" world, it's a writing style that I thoroughly enjoy. 

He covers the legends, but also spends great time on men I'd never heard of. From Bob Waterfield to Y.A. Tittle and prep Colin Hurley, all of them bonded by quarterback but worlds apart in personalities. 

Many writers re-write the facts, often a formality in English 101. At the end of Forrest Gump, the woman on the park bench tells Forrest, "Well, I thought it was a very lovely story, and you tell it so well." 

Folks, that's the best way to describe this book: the stories are rich in details, and the narratives go so deep. As Steve Young talked, there were times when I thought, this is about as much as I could possibly get without being in this guy's brain.

Wickersham didn't write this with an army of researchers. He wrote it after a lifetime of experiences that allowed the stories to just flow naturally. 

I don't give many 5-star reviews, but this is one. Enjoy it. 

I recently celebrated my 41st birthday. At this point in my life, "celebrate" may not be the right word, but you get the point. 

With three young children, a doctor-wife who takes call, and a full-time day job, the days are long and the years, I guess they say they're short. Personal time for me is precious; time that is often hindered by the amount of sitting, crawling, and bending I do on a daily basis to keep this family-engine churning. 

Don't get me wrong: I'm in good shape, but my pattern of movement has changed significantly. Ten years ago, I could sit at a desk all day, then go run five miles or play full-court basketball for hours on end without ever having to think about it. Today, not so much. 

Last month, I got an email from an author I had never heard of. His name? Gary J. Kirchner. Hailing from Canada, I learned that Kirchner had both played and coached football at McGill University, a highly regarded public research institution in Montreal. 

His ask? Check out his new book, "Pacing The Sidelines," which is the first in a two-part series about football. When people reach out, unless I have absolutely no interest in the subject, I will almost always read their book. It's really the essence of what this site is: a place to uncover new sports books, highlight lesser-known authors, and provide recommendations on books that I feel are worth your time. 

To be fair, I've read plenty of books that I subsequently haven't written about. And while I could start writing reviews of every title I complete, I just don't believe in recapping something that I think is three stars or less. 

I just finished reading the book, Spare, by Prince Harry (ghost-written by J.R. Moehringer). And while this isn't a "sports book" per se, I feel compelled to write about a few takeaways. 

I just finished reading Hunting the Caliphate by Dana J.H. Pittard and Wes J. Bryant. While this book isn't about sports per se, I've always found a lot of similarities between sports and the military: the teamwork required to succeed, the hard work that everyone involved puts in, and the constant evaluation of strategy to be in a position to win. 

In the summer of 2006, I had the opportunity to intern at a sports management agency. I'd work at the agency in the mornings, eat a sandwich at the office, then tuck my dress pants into my socks and bike to my second job as a bank teller. It was a full day, but I learned a lot about all aspects of business. 

I just finished Zen and the Art of Coaching Basketball: Memoir of a Namibian Odyssey by Ben Guest. Guest makes his first trip to Namibia shortly after college as part of the Peace Corps. After a couple stops in Mississippi as a teacher and coach, he returns to Namibia to teach at a private, international high school. Despite the school not offering sports, Guest goes to watch the public school championships and is offered a job to coach a boy's high school team. 

Here are my key takeaways from the book.                                  

Originally published on January 4, 2022, on Medium.com.

Have you ever gotten into a book, so much so, that when you look at the clock, three hours have passed, and it’s well past your bedtime? Last week, I finished Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory. The story details the life of Pat Tillman, the former NFL star turned Army Ranger, who gave his life during the war in Afghanistan. Pat Tillman was a guy that you had to love: confident, hard-working, committed, and determined to serve others, even at the expense of his closest loved ones. He possessed a unique belief system, rooted in both challenging himself (he ran a marathon during an NFL offseason) and serving the greater good (leaving a multimillion dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join a bunch of 19-year-old kids at Fort Benning).

I finished reading Sooley by John Grisham over the weekend and really enjoyed the book. Samuel "Sooley" Sooleymon grows up in South Sudan, is the last person chosen to travel to the US to play in a youth tournament, and eventually gets a scholarship to North Carolina Central.