Sports – Lemuria Books

Category: Sports (Page 1 of 6)

By Mike Fracogna. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 6)

Stories From 125 Years of Ole Miss Football, edited by Neil White, takes readers on a memorable journey of the Rebels fabled past. From the first gridiron contest in 1893 through 2017 season, the book covers twelve exciting decades of Ole Miss football history.

White and over fifty contributors detail a “scrapbook” narrative with many never-before told stories, backed with photographs and memorabilia from private collections and the University’s archives. The unique culture and traditions of Ole Miss are brought vividly to life by some of the University’s favorite sons. These personal accounts display a deeply passionate appreciation for the University of Mississippi.

Colorful details are devoted to past games against Ole Miss arch-rivals Arkansas, LSU, and, of course, the Bulldogs of Mississippi State. Of particular interest is the section entitled David v. Goliath, which recaps four of the Rebels greatest upset victories in its storied history. The unforgettable 20-13 win over No. 3 ranked Notre Dame in 1977 at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium, in what many fans say, was the hottest day ever to watch a football game. The 31-30 victory in 2018 over No. 4 ranked Florida Gators in the Swamp in Gainesville. The 1952 upset of No. 3 ranked Maryland which snapped a 22-game winning streak for the Terrapins and put Ole Miss football on the national map. And, the memorable 2015 victory (43-37) over national champion contender Alabama at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa.

Long time editor of the Ole Miss spirit and life-long Rebel fan Chuck Rounsaville, provides a heart-felt essay describing his beloved red and blue teams. He says, “Rebel memories are buried into my brain like a tattoo on a Sailor’s chest.”

There are so many memories from so many gridiron heroes like Parker Hall, who led the nation in 1936 in six individual categories—scoring, highest average per rush, highest average per kickoff and punt return, most pass interception yards, TD’s responsible, and all purpose yards per game. Stars such as Kayo Dottley, Archie Manning, Bruiser Kinard, Patrick Willis, Charlie Conerly, Eli Manning, Charlie Flowers, Jake Gibbs, and Deuce McAllister shine, to mention just a few.

The book cherishes memories created by the greatest Ole Miss teams of all-time: The National Champion 1959 squad considered one of the best defensive teams in college football history; the National Champion 1962 team, the only undefeated, united team Ole Miss team; the 1960, 1910, 1947, 1954, 2003, 2015 teams, all remarkable campaigns that helped build Ole Miss into a national power.

White’s scrapbook narrative is packed with lists of Ole Miss All-Time Offense, Defense, Greatest Victories, Most Disappointing Defeats, Greatest Teams, Top Ten NFL Players of All-Time, and many more.

It takes a lot of history to make traditions, and Stories From 125 Years of Ole Miss Football is loaded with both. Hotty Toddy!

X.M. (Mike) Fracogna, Jr. is an attorney in Jackson. Mike and his two sons, Mike III and Marty, both attorneys, have authored five books and produced six film documentaries about Mississippi high school and Juco football.

Author Q & A with Neil White (Stories from 125 of Ole Miss Football)

By Guest Author

On September 29, 2019

In Southern Culture, Sports

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 29)

If you thought you knew everything about Ole Miss football–you probably didn’t.

If you want to know everything about Ole Miss football, though, there’s a new resource that pretty much covers it all.

From the colorful to the unbelievable, the anguish to the exhilaration, Neil White’s new release Stories From 125 Years of Ole Miss Football (Nautilus) is filled with stories you’ve probably never heard and photos you’ve probably never seen.

“To build this book,” White states in the opening pages, “our team of writers and editors interviewed more than 60 players, coaches, journalists, widows, children, and fans. “Each interview started with the same request: ‘Tell us a story that most people don’t know.’”

The result is the ultimate football lovers’ dream: not just “new” stories, but an Appendix that includes charts and graphics highlighting many “Top 10” lists, best and worst games, coaches and seasons, team lineups and more.

Contributors to the book included Rick Cleveland, Billy Watkins, Robert Khayat, Jeff Roberson, and more.

An Oxford native and current resident, White has been a newspaper editor, magazine publisher, advertising executive and federal prisoner, and may best be known for his debut book, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts. Today he operates The Nautilus Publishing Co., writes plays and essays, and teaches memoir writing.

For context, please briefly share your own Ole Miss experience. It’s obvious in your book that you are a big Rebels fan!

Neil White

I’m a third generation Ole Miss guy. I attended my first football game at age 1. I was 8 years old when Archie-mania swept the South. I attended summer football camps and got to know Warner Alford and Junie Hovious and Eddie Crawford, as well as former players. We’re not a hunting or fishing family, so Ole Miss football games were what we did together. My father took me to games; I took my son to games. We still have tickets together.

As Stories from 125 Years of Ole Miss Football marks a milestone year of Rebel football, it is unique in that the entire book is filled with stories that required one main criteria: “Tell us a story that most people don’t know.” The result is a volume filled with secrets and little-known facts that, for most readers, will be brand new information! Tell me briefly about how you assembled the team of storytellers and editors that put this book together, and how they made it work.

As we interviewed the obvious contributors – Robert Khayat, Archie Manning, Jake Gibbs, Jesse Mitchell, Deuce McAllister and Perian Conerly–they would say, “You need to talk to . . . Dan Jordan, or Skipper Jernigan, or Billy Ray Adams.” So, the early interviewees knew who had the great untold stories. Picking the editors was much easier. Rick Cleveland, Billy Watkins, Chuck Rounsaville, Jeff Roberson, Don Whitten, and Langston Rogers could each write stories to fill five volumes.
The book took about a year to complete.

In the book, you explain the breadth of research it took to find and verify these stories. Tell me about that process.

I spent about seven months researching in the archives at Ole Miss, reading all the books that had ever been written about Ole Miss football, and researching hundreds of old newspaper reports. Then, we spent about five months interviewing individuals. Memory is subjective, at best. Sometimes we had conflicting stories. As we dug deeper, we almost always found some way to corroborate the story–or disprove it.

For example, most people assume – because it has been mis-reported for 67 years – that Bud Slay caught the lone touchdown pass in the 1952 Maryland upset. That game put Ole Miss on the national football map; Maryland had a 21-game win streak and the number one defense in the nation. Ray “Buck” Howell actually caught the pass from All-American Jimmy Lear, but the day after the game an AP report listed the name as “Bud Howell”–a combination of the two receivers. As it turns out, Ray “Buck” Howell is alive and well and living in Jackson. He’s such a humble, nice man. He says, “Now, I don’t want this to be about me”–then he pauses and smiles–“but I did catch the pass.” So, after 67 years, we get to set the record straight and give Howell the credit he deserves.

How did you choose the players and coaches whose stories you included in this book?

We included the stories from the players and coaches and their families who were the most forthcoming, and those whose stories were the most interesting, colorful, and impactful.

The early history of Ole Miss football is fascinating when compared to today’s game . . . as in, team members in the 1890s would grow their hair longer for protection, since players did not wear helmets! Who would you say should read this historical document for true fans?

Anyone who enjoys football or history or good stories. I especially like the stories that illustrate how crisis and fate lead to something, ultimately, wonderful for Ole Miss. For example, in 1943, Ole Miss didn’t have a football team. Coach Harry Mehre was charged with preparing students for war. He hired a young coach from Moss Point to train the cadets in hand-to-hand combat. That man’s name was Edward Khayat. He moved his family, including his five-year-old son Robert, to Oxford. They lived in faculty house #1. It was the first time the Khayats, who had been a Millsaps family, were affiliated with Ole Miss. That odd year, without a football team, changed the course of history for the university.

Is it your hope that, at some point years from now, someone else will pick up the tradition and continue the story?

Absolutely. If someone can use this book as a foundation for a 150-year project, wonderful. I read every book previously published on Ole Miss football. They were invaluable. I hope this one will be a part of that growing history.

Signed copies of Stories from 125 Years of Ole Miss Football are available at Lemuria and at our online store.

Author Q & A with Margerita Jurkovic

By Guest Author

On August 25, 2019

In Southern Culture, Sports

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (August 25)

Slovenian attorney Margerita Jurkovic said she had “no idea what to expect” when she arrived in Jackson in 2017 as a law exchange student–but it wasn’t long before she found herself captivated by a passion for a brand new experience: American (and specifically Southern) football.

She soon realized that the stories she lived out as she discovered the thrill of the game, literally on the sidelines, were the stuff that would make a good read, and Margerita’s Gridiron Adventure: A Slovenian Lawyer’s Crash Course in American Football Culture was the inevitable outcome.

Mike Frascogna, a Jackson attorney and former law professor of Jurkovic’s, took the football novice under his sports-driven wing and introduced her to the game at youth, high school and college matches throughout the Southeast during the 2018 season. Her perspective, as an outsider who was new to the game–and the culture–of Southern football is honest, humorous, and often thought-provoking.

Jurkovic received her second Master of Law at Mississippi College in 2018, graduating magna cum laude. She also holds a doctoral degree in criminal law and human rights. In Slovenia, she serves as CEO of a non-profit organization that works with victims of domestic abuse and human trafficking.

While in Mississippi, Jurkovic specialized in negotiations and entertainment law at Frascogna Entertainment Law, a Division of Frascogna Courtney, PLLC, in Jackson.

What brought you to Mississippi from your home country of Slovenia?

Margerita Jurkovic

First, it started as an educational experience in law for me. Finishing my PhD, I thought it would be useful to get some experience in a country with a common law system, so I found Mississippi through one of my law school contacts at home. I was planning on staying only a couple of months, but before I realized I had been in Jackson for almost two years.

How did your passion for Mississippi football develop so quickly, and what role did Jackson attorney Mike Frascogna play in that process?

It happened so spontaneously, my passion for football. While in Jackson I was constantly surrounded by people who are interested in this sport. Seeing the enthusiasm of players and coaches, and then experiencing what the win of their chosen teams means to the fans (played a big part) . . . and Mike Frascogna–he knows a lot of people around here. I learned a lot from him, not only football, but about the law, and also life.

It seems you had a unique vantage point at the high school and college football games you attended during your time in Mississippi: you were actually on the sidelines during the games! How was Mike able to make that possible, and do you think that made the games even more exciting, especially since you usually got to meet the coaches or high-level school officials?

Absolutely–I got to experience things most fans cannot, and this is why the book has so many unique stories–like hearing the pre-game talks in the locker rooms. I became spoiled in a way–now, I only want to watch football from the sidelines! The involvement of the Frascogna law firm in Mississippi athletics made things easier for us. One of my characters in the book said, “Mike can make anything possible!” I guess she was not far from the truth.

What were some important lessons you learned from this experience?

There are many lessons one can learn while living abroad, especially how to keep yourself happy and involved in local activities, even while being so different, and often missing home. There are many differences between European and American life, but we all share the same human needs. Seeing the 7- and 8-year-olds playing the rough sport of football helped me understand some basic American values: protecting teammates, loving competition, and not being afraid of physical contact.

What convinced you to write a book about this adventure?

I did not need any convincing after coming in contact with the passion of the coaches and players for the game, and observing the enjoyment of the fans, cheerleaders, bands and the dance groups. It is truly a unique cultural event, involving the entire community. The emotions of this sport got me from the first day.

I never expected that I would be writing a book about football, surrounded by sweet tea and strong men, seriously fighting out there, for the love of the game.

Adding up ‘The Cost of These Dreams’ by Wright Thompson

By Former Lemurians

On August 5, 2019

In Sports

by Andrew Hedglin

I have always lived in Jackson (or its suburbs), but for a couple of years in my mid-twenties, I lived and taught in an extremely rural area of the Louisiana delta. For a long time, I had trouble finding anybody my age to hang out with, and I reached desperately for things to connect me to the outside world that I had come from. I got really into podcasts for my long commutes (especially old episodes of This American Life). Every trip to Vicksburg seemed like a visit to a vast metropolis. And on Friday nights, I would head over to my town’s one small chain pizza joint, and I would read my copy of ESPN the Magazine.

Mostly, I’m a football fan, with only a minor concern for keeping a toe in other waters of the sporting well, mostly for conversation purposes. And occasionally, the content would run a little too deep into the numbers and statistics for me to connect. But often, astonishingly so, it was a repository of top-flight long-form journalism, stories that connect you straight to the truths of the human heart (Faulkner’s “old verities,” if you will). And Mississippi’s own Wright Thompson is a master of this form, evident in his new collection of his ESPN the Magazine stories, entitled The Cost of These Dreams.

I had let my magazine habit lapse some time after I got back to the Jackson area (although, to be fair, within a year, I was working at a bookstore). I guess I’m not the only one, because ESPN the Magazine will no longer distribute print issues after September. But every once in a while, it’s refreshing to go back and revisit the gorgeous prose put together for these magazines, no less worthy for being ephemeral, like an ice sculpture or a rose garden. I say that, but although some of these stories have a decade-old byline, they all feel remarkable fresh and relevant. If the form is temporary, the stories themselves have at least a little bit of timelessness to them.

Thompson tackles the travails of some of the biggest stars to ever play, like Michael Jordan, Lionel Messi, Ted Williams, and Tiger Woods. But he is equally at home with ordinary citizens in New Orleans and Chicago. But people who have been to the pinnacle is obviously a fascination with him. This is the “dreams” part of his work.

But the theme that shows up again and again in this stories is devastation, either of the psyche, but sometimes of an entire physical place. This is the “cost” portion of Thompson’s work. What is so remarkable is how these ideas work hand-in-hand with each other, again and again in so many people and places.

It’s hard to pick a favorite, because I enjoyed them all immensely, but if my arm was twisted, I would have to say “Beyond the Breach,” a ten-year anniversary piece of New Orleans after Katrina that spans 70 pages of the book and once dominated an entire issue. My favorite part is when Thompson writes about Blair Boutte, a local business and community leader who grew up in the Iberville housing projects, who helped his friend Shack Brown run a community football league that helped local kids stay off the streets and, possibly, save their lives. The city’s parks department seizes the playground where the league is located to make a public green space that makes the city feel “safer” for people who make its hospitality economy run. And then Thompson writes the kicker: “For Blair, two contradictory ideas are true a the same time; there aren’t good guys and bad guys, but there are certainly winners and losers.”

It’s that sort of nuance, the mixing of the good and the bad, that we need to remember as live our lives and plan our cities, a reminder to be careful, to stop, to consider. We can reach for a better tomorrow, but what will it cost? If the cost is too high, is it really better, worthwhile?

So, yeah, every story in this collection is contractually obligated to connect to sports in some way. But sports are powerful symbols in society, and you don’t have to care about the fine-print box scores to feel the humanity and power in stories like these. If you feel the urge to connect to the larger world out there, you could do worse than reading The Cost of the These Dreams.

Wright Thompson will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant in the “For the Love of the Game” sports panel at 10:45 a.m. at the Galloway Foundery.

Print the Legend: ‘All the Way’ by Joe Namath

By Former Lemurians

On June 12, 2019

In Biography/Memoir, Celebrity, Sports

by Andrew Hedglin

Once upon a time, I used to be a history teacher. I tried to impress upon my students that when we talked about giants of history–Martin Luther, Napoleon, Isaac Newton, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, etc.–that we were using them as shorthand for even bigger ideas. Genius is fine as far as it goes, but the most important human developments are products of collaboration. Few people will ever be giants, and to endlessly study biography for hints on whatever separates these titans from men–we have dozens of volumes on Winston Churchill alone here at Lemuria–might be missing the point.

What was going to talk about here? Oh, yes. Joe Namath. Joe Willie. Broadway Joe. And, specifically, his new memoir, All the Way: My Life in Four Quarters.

Joe Namath has some of the most baffling statistics of any quarterback elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. For his career, he threw more interceptions than touchdowns. Although he was, for the most part, a very good quarterback, especially by the standards of his era, what makes him a legend?

Joe Namath is shorthand for a bigger idea.

Namath smartly structures the book around a recounting of Super Bowl III, where his upstart AFL New York Jets defeated the powerhouse NFL Baltimore Colts, 16-7, beating no less than legends in Johnny Unitas and Don Shula in the process. The win legitimized the new league, proving that the teams of each league, which had been united in a recent merger, could be on equal footing on any given Sunday.

Joe Namath doesn’t talk about this game because it was his finest moment personally–he didn’t throw a touchdown in the game–but because he knows it is what people want to hear about from him. The actual game had its own heroes–runningback Matt Snell and cornerback Johnny Sample, but Joe Namath remains the enduring image–the guarantee, the index finger pointed skyward as he heads victoriously back into the tunnel.

Namath knows what the reader wants to hear about, but in return, he has his own things that he wants to talk about, including a plethora of adolescent tales set in his hometown of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. He throws in a fair amount of story from his playing days at Alabama under Bear Bryant. He reserves most of his privacy for his post-playing days, although his often dotes on his daughters and explains the drunken incident with Suzy Kolber at a 2003 Jets game.

Overall, Namath seems like a pretty good guy, and his co-writers Sean Mortimer and Don Yaeger help guide the story into a very readable format, even if does (charmingly, for my money) meander all over the place. Seeing a man become a legend is fun, sure, but stripping away the legend to see the humanity underneath is always the most fascinating part to me.

Signed first editions of Joe Namath’s All the Way: My Life in Four Quarters are currently available at Lemuria’s online store.

Author Q & A with Wright Thompson

By Guest Author

On June 9, 2019

In Sports

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (June 9)

Oxford resident and ESPN Magazine senior writer Wright Thompson shares 14 essays (chosen from years of examining the inner lives of sports figures) in his new book The Cost of These Dreams: Sports Stories and Other Serious Business.

But Thompson doesn’t just “cover sports.” His is more a literary style that frames the athletes he writes about in a light most have never seen cast on these figures: the struggles, the hopes, the disappointments, and oftentimes the personal failures of men and women who know firsthand the high cost required to make it to the top – and attempt to stay there. Included are the stories of Michael Jordan, Bear Bryant, Ted Williams, and others who know the pain and joy of success in sports at its highest levels. Thompson ends the book with a memoir of his late father and his personal longings to honor his dad’s memory.

The Clarksdale native began writing about sports for his hometown newspaper while in high school, and he went on to the University of Missouri in Columbia to study journalism. Wright would write for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans and The Kansas City Star (where he covered Super Bowls, Final Fours, The Masters and the Kentucky Derby) before joining the ESPN staff in 2006.

Tell me about how you became interested in sports and sports writing, especially “literary” sports writing.

Wright Thompson

I became interested in sports because both my mother, Mary, and my father, Walter, loved sports; they both loved football and my mom is obsessed with basketball. For her last big milestone birthday, I took her to games one through four of the NBA Finals.

I became interested in literature because my mother was an English and creative writing teacher and because I grew up in a house filled with books. We had a room in our house we called the library because it was floor to ceiling bookshelves, and I lived on those shelves. I read Dylan Thomas and Thomas Merton and C.S. Lewis and Willie Morris and on and on and on. My working life started in that front room with the great light through the old glass windows.

The Cost of These Dreams is a compilation of 14 essays you’ve written during your career with ESPN Magazine. Please tell me how the book came about, and why.

The short answer is that I wanted to see how these separate pieces, often separated by years, fit together. The long answer has to do with money and ego. Let’s go with the short answer!

You’ve seen firsthand how fame has affected well-known athletes. What do believe is the biggest challenge they face as their popularity grows?

I would say that whether someone is famous (or not) has basically no bearing on their interior life, on their hopes and dreams, while their fame is the single most important and difficult-to- navigate part of their exterior life. This almost inevitably leads to a growing chasm between how they see themselves and how they are seen, and the real risk then is to avoid, as John Updike said, the mask eating the face.

You make an interesting statement in the book’s preface when you say you are using its platform to make a “public vow. . . that (you) will learn from the people (you are) writing about.” Please explain why it was important for you to announce that to your readers.

The main thing I wanted the preface to do was explain how these stories fit together, and what the journey of making them felt like from the inside. I get to spend a lot of time up close and personal with the most driven, successful people on the planet, and I see which of their decisions they are content with, and which ones haunt them; there is no excuse if I am not going to school on their successes and failures.

The last story in the book (titled “Holy Ground”) is an homage to your father and your relationship with him. Tell us about this piece.

It’s a story about my late father, Walter Thompson, from Bentonia. The specifics of the story are about our shared love of watching golf and my regrets over not understanding that time is limited and fleeting and slipping through our fingers every day.

I go to Bentonia sometimes, to see the house where he grew up, and visit the White Front; recently I walked the old football field where he used to play, which is now abandoned, and I tried to imagine a young man there, with his family in the stands, and standing on that grass I wondered what of that young man remains in this place and what lives inside me and what is gone forever. That’s what the story is about. That search.

Briefly, tell me about the thought-provoking title of your book.

It’s a lyric from a Drive-By Truckers song I really like, one that has always moved me more than the collection of words suggested it should. I don’t know why it hit me like that. To me, the title is about the shared price everyone who wants something desperately and at the expense of other things in their life will pay for that dream, should they be one of the rare lucky few to actually reach it.

Wright Thompson will be at Lemuria on Tuesday, June 18, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss The Cost of These Dreams.

Margerita’s Gridiron Adventure: The revealing perspective of a Slovenian on Southern football and culture

By Guest Author

On January 9, 2019

In Southern Culture, Sports

Margerita Jurkovic recently moved to Jackson, Mississippi, to extend her legal education. A highly successful young lawyer from the small European country of Slovenia, her passion lies in representing victims of domestic violence, and she is working diligently on legislative improvements in the anti-human trafficking field. She came to the United States to finish her doctoral research while concluding her American LL.M. program and had the terrific opportunity to work with Mike Frascogna Jr., her former law professor.

In the meantime, something interesting happened.

Before August 2018, Margerita had never seen a football game. Not “American football,” anyway. Her first game experience was at Jackson Academy, where the Raiders hosted Lamar School at the Brickyard. This was where she learned firsthand what it means to make a tackle and to sack an opponent—and she was hooked! Soon she started a blog, which is sharing her life-changing experiences with both the American and European public. After highly encouraging feedback from readers, she decided to write a full-length book—a visual, highly-compelling look at not only her perspective from the field, but the culture around football . . . and especially the culture of the steamy, sun-drenched south.

Margerita keeps a sharp eye on all aspects of the habits, cultural experiences, and politics deriving from her stay in the Magnolia State and finds the inhabitants of her “home away from home” fascinating. Through moments both humorous and poignant, readers will have a keen sense of just how a visitor from across the world sees and interprets surroundings that so many locals take for granted. This exciting blog is just a taste of what readers will enjoy upon release in summer 2019.

WHAT I’M UP TO . . .

When I moved to Jackson, I developed an addiction for the first time in my life—an addiction to football! No, I’m not from Hattiesburg or Tupelo or Gulfport or Standing Pine, Mississippi. I’m from Slovenia! Yes, that Slovenia, way across the world in central Europe (the former Yugoslavia, where Melania Trump is from). And I have opinions—including some pretty strong ones—about what I see not only on the sidelines of games at Mississippi State University, Jackson State University, Belhaven University, and Jackson Academy, but what I’m learning about Americans—specifically some really interesting Mississippians—along the way. I know this much: Y’all drink a lot of sweet tea here! Please check out my website and be a small part of my game of life!

Finding the Perfect Book for a Football Fan this Christmas

By Former Lemurians

On December 4, 2018

In Sports

by Andrew Hedglin

One of the dual passions of my life has been reading books and following football. I have may have written about football a time or two on the blog before. I don’t know how large the Venn diagram cross section between the two segments are, but I have somehow landed firmly in the middle of them. And there have been a number of excellent football books that have come out this fall. If you happen to have somebody in your life who is both an unrepentant football fanatic and voracious reader, this is your guide to them all.

Part of the reason I became a football fan was because I loved watching Deuce McAllister run wild for the Ole Miss Rebels in the late 1990s. When he was drafted by the New Orleans Saints, that sealed my fate as being fans of those two teams. My dad had a similar experience with another player who followed that path before: the great Archie Manning. Mark Ribowsky, a professional biographer of musicians and sports figures, has come out with a new Manning chronicle, called In the Name of the Father: Family, Football, and the Manning Dynasty.

I was a little hesitant at first, because I had already read The Mannings by Lars Anderson last year, but In the Name of the Father is a little less hagiographic and focuses more on the pro careers of Archie, Peyton, and Eli, but I thoroughly enjoyed the fair but full portraits of Mississippi’s first family of football.

Another very fine history is John Eisenburg’s The League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire. This may even be my favorite of these football books. The five rivals referred to in the title are George Halas of the Chicago Bears, Tim Mara of the New York Giants, George Preston Marshall of the Washington Redskins, Bert Bell of the Philadelphia Eagles, and Art Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

This is the most cohesive retelling of the NFL’ s origins that I’ve ever read, and I was as engrossed by owner’s “for the good of all” ethic as I was thrilled by references to the NFL’s history like the Hupmobile dealership, the Galloping Ghost, the Sneakers Game, the Steagles, 73-0, Slingin’ Sammy Baugh, and the Greatest Game Ever Played.

A somewhat disheartening but occasionally hilarious follow-up to The League would be Mark Leibovich’s exposé Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times. Leibovich is, by trade, a political reporter famous for his Washington insiders book This Town, but here he turns his eyes to the absurdities, excesses, scandals, and grime of the modern NFL machine, focusing primarily on the team’s owners, specifically the Patriots’ Robert Kraft and the Cowboys’ Jerry Jones.

Leibovich’s worlds collide when the NFL has to dance around the gigantic figure of Donald Trump, whose own complicated history with the NFL make him delight in using the league as a pawn in his political games.

To find the origin story of that crazy tale, you could do worse than reading Jeff Pearlman’s engrossing history of the USFL, Football for a Buck. Pearlman has put out excellent biographies of Walter Payton and Brett Favre in recent years, but he is at his best when describing the widening gyres of an organization careening out of control, like he did when writing about the mid-90s Dallas Cowboys in Boys Will Be Boys.

Here, Pearlman tells the story of the USFL, a popular spring football league in the 1980s conceived of by David Dixon, the idea man behind both the New Orleans Saints and the Superdome. The USFL originally had modest goals, but soon was locked in a spending war for bright stars. From this, it served as the launching pad for future stars Hershel Walker, Reggie White, Jim Kelly, and Steve Young. It was a victim of several years of chronic mismanagement, but its death knell was sounded when New York Generals owner Donald Trump pushed the USFL to move to an unsustainable fall schedule, in hopes of securing a NFL franchise of his own.

The final book I have to tell you about is Gridiron Genius: A Master Class in Winning and Building Dynasties in the NFL by Michael Lombardi. I’ve been a fan of Lombardi for years through his podcasts first with Bill Simmons and then on The Ringer. Before (and in the middle) of his media career, he has served as an NFL general manager and worked with football luminaries such as Bill Walsh, Al Davis, and Bill Belichick.

Lombardi’s book reads completely different than any other book on this list. In its DNA are the kind of ideas that permeate our business book section. Lombardi’s always been something of a polymath, so I think this is by design. Forget X’s and O’s. Forget star players. Lombardi is here to tell you that NFL teams are like any other organization, and that you have to create a “culture” if you’re interested in any sort of sustainable, deliberate success. Walsh’s 49ers and Belichick’s Patriots may be the greatest example the modern NFL has ever had. You may not get the opportunity to run an NFL team, but you might have the opportunity to run something else, and this book will help remind you to sweat the details.

So there you have it: 2018’s best bets for the professional football fan in your life. If you have somebody (or are somebody) who loves reading about football, you will surely find their next great read this Christmas somewhere on this list.

Author Q & A with Paul Lacoste

By Guest Author

On December 18, 2017

In Sports

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (December 17)

lacoste cover Paul Lacoste has spent his career coaching others into top physical form, and he’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to getting his clients in shape, he’s not known for taking a subtle approach.

But he’s learned the hard way that motivating people to reach their fitness goals is about more than changing their physical appearance–it’s all about inspiring mental and spiritual changes, as well.

In his newly released book, Lacoste: Living Life at the Next Level, he shares his own story of how the many life challenges he’s faced eventually led to a realization that only his faith in God could turn things around.

Today Lacoste, who holds a master’s degree in Sports Administration from Mississippi State University, enthusiastically brings that commitment to his coaching style, as he tells clients: “I want your F.A.T.”–or Fears Affecting Transformation. His goal these days is to go beyond their physical needs as he acknowledges that they, like him, may be facing inner challenges that could hold them back from reaching fitness objectives.

A lifelong athlete who was named an All SEC football player at MSU and played for the National Football League, the Canadian Football League, and the XFL, Lacoste found that it was adversity–not athleticism–that would lead him to the next level.

His growing series of nationally recognized fitness programs for adults, students and pro athletes has brought him scores of awards, including the White House Champions of Change award and several designations as best trainer in the Jackson Metro area.

Mike Frascogna III, who competed against him in high school sports and played college football at Notre Dame while Lacoste played at Mississippi State, is an intellectual property lawyer and co-author of five previous sports-related books. Lacoste: Living Life at the Next Level, he says, is a result of his 30-year friendship with Lacoste.

As the youngest of four competitive, athletic, and smart brothers and the son of a very driven father, you grew up in Jackson in a home you’ve described as loving, supportive, and extremely competitive. Briefly explain the values that were instilled in you through those years.

Growing up in a home that demonstrated tremendous love, support, and extreme competition fortunately taught me the values of what true love, protection, and lifelong commitment is for family, friends, and loved ones. More specifically, I learned by observation and watching my parents’ actions towards each other and towards each of their children. We were all taught we could achieve and do anything we wanted if we stayed focused, worked hard, and never gave up on the goals and dreams life set before us.

Encouraging health and wellness at a local elementary school

Along with this, I was taught to not grow up and find “any job” just to bring home a paycheck, but to truly find something I was passionate about–and that success was sure to follow. This is something I have personally carried on and try to instill in my two sons, Cannon and Cole, on a daily basis.

As you grew, you realized you were blessed with athletic talent and, thanks to your mother, you also excelled academically despite the challenges of hyperactivity and dyslexia. How have these realities shaped you?

Growing up with ADHD and dyslexia combined, I had to quickly learn the importance of a serious work ethic at a young age. I treated my football days as my job from junior high forward. With this, I had to choose to overcome obstacles, never back down, and know hard work was sure to pay off.

Looking back, I am forever thankful for my mother’s consistency in working with me every day, and for choosing to not let my “fits” as a kid cause her to give in and not make me complete what she knew was best for me.

Those realities have brought me through so many obstacles and so many stages in my life, including my brother’s death at a very young age, accepting the highs and lows of my football career, overcoming West Nile, and facing a terrible divorce, to name a few.

After being named an All-SEC player at Mississippi State and participating in brief associations with the NFL, the CFL and the XFL, you earned your master’s degree in Sports Administration, began to reconsider your dream of playing pro ball, and planned to begin a career in coaching. It turned out that you found your niche in fitness training for mostly non-athletes. How and why did this turn out to be your most passionate career pursuit?

I consider my niche to be more of a “coaching” style rather than a fitness training approach. Whether I am working with a pro athlete getting ready for the combine or a local business man or woman, my goal is to help that person achieve his or her dreams and to never give up.

Early morning training at Madison Central High School

I give a lot of credit for the way I coach today to my mother and the way she worked with me as a young boy, and to my coaches in football, basketball, soccer, and other sports, throughout life.

My passion lies in helping people take life to the next level. Yes, my clients come to me to get in shape. However, I have learned that getting in shape is not just physical. I tell my clients, “I want your F.A.T.!”

“FAT” stands for fears affecting transformation. These fears can be physical, spiritual, and mental–anything that holds an individual back from being his or her best.

It seems the word most associated with your training style (and everything else you do) is “intense,” and you developed a reputation as a somewhat ruthless trainer who produced results for clients, but often with a rather “rough around the edges” persona. You’ve lightened up in recent years. Explain the change.

I have definitely not “lightened up.” I am still just as intense, if not even more passionate now than ever. But through the trials and tribulations previously mentioned it became clearer to me in recent years what “F.A.T.” consisted of. Through the valleys and mountains in my own life, I can better relate to my clients and what is holding them back. Getting baptized on my 40th birthday started a new beginning for me.

You still demand a lot of your clients when they sign up for your training programs. Tell me about the programs you offer, and what clients can expect.

Currently, I have three 12-week programs a year; three four-week programs; and the Fit 4 Series, consisting of Fit 4 Change, Fit 4 Preaching, Fit 4 Teaching, and Fit 4 Healthcare. The 12-week programs and Fit 4 programs are four days a week for an hour each day. The four-week programs take place on the “off months” of the 12-week programs, meeting twice a week for an hour each day.

I make it clear to all participants on day one of each program that I have them for one hour a day and there are 23 more hours in the day, leaving it up to each of them to have discipline and stay focused. During this one hour it is very important that the participants don’t waste their time or my time by stepping onto the training field if they are not ready to give it their all.

All in all, clients can expect results through a training program that is recognized and has been recognized for years as not only as intense, but as the best throughout the country. Paul Lacoste Sports has been contacted by the Oprah Winfrey Network, presented with the award for excellence in wellness promotion by the Mississippi State Medical Association, nominated for the Magnolia award and for the White House Champions of Change award featured in Men’s Health Magazine, and voted as best boot camp and trainer in the Greater Jackson area, to name a few.

Why did you decide to put your story into book form?

My longtime life friend Mike Frascogna has encouraged me for years to consider a book that would offer inspiration and motivation to anyone who is wanting to know he or she is not alone in overcoming the obstacles, trials and tribulations that life has to offer at all stages. Mike has been by my side for over 20 years, and has lived through challenging personal life events with me. Through his persistent encouragement, Mike made it clear to me that if I shared my life struggles with others, the story would be worth it 100 times over and over again if it saved one person from giving up on life’s dreams, passions, and the unique talents and abilities God has blessed each of us with.

Just as important, my dear friend and mentor Ron Aldridge with the Mississippi Beverage Association has stood by my side through thick and thin since the first Fit 4 Change program in 2009. It was with his shared passion for the health and wellness for the state of Mississippi that he has not only encouraged me, but made the book become a reality through our business partnership.

Through the years, you’ve endured the crushing weight of adversity through the death of your oldest brother when he was only 28, financial setbacks, divorce, a life-threatening case of West Nile virus, cancer, depression, and the threat of losing your two young sons. What has transformed your outlook into a more positive attitude?

Once my ex-wife moved my sons away from me from Madison to the Gulf Coast, making it nearly impossible for me to have a daily relationship with Cannon and Cole, I was quickly knocked down and felt I had nowhere else to go.

At that point, I opened my hands and asked God to take full control of my life and lead the way. I learned the hard way we all have “our” plans for our lives, but God’s plan is much better, even though it may be a different plan than what we expected. We must choose to trust in Him. Our minister at Pinelake [Church] told us that “If we give our future to God, we get a future.” Wow, now that’s powerful!

A new approach to training

What does your future hold?

Just around the corner, Fit 4 Change and Fit 4 Preaching will take place in January, February, and March. I am looking forward to Fit 4 Healthcare and Fit 4 Teaching during the summer months. I continue to strive in looking for new opportunities and programs that will positively impact the health and well-being not only for our local community but throughout the state of Mississippi.

Paul Lacoste and Mike Frascogna III will sign copies of Lacoste: Living Life at the Next Level at 5 p.m. Dec. 20 at Lemuria Books in Jackson.

Gifting the Perfect Book: For Both a Packer’s Backers and His Detractors

By Former Lemurians

On December 14, 2016

In Sports

by Andrew Hedglin

A disclaimer: I’m not really so much a Brett Favre fan. I am, however, definitely a Jeff Pearlman fan.

Pearlman is the author of both the melancholy, elegiac Walter Payton biography gunslinger Sweetness and the uproarious, unbelievable 90s Dallas Cowboys tell-all Boys Will Be Boys. Biographies are at their best when the writers get themselves out of the way, which Pearlman does, although he still leaves an impression with his skill and versatility. So, when I heard this fall he was releasing Gunslinger: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre, I knew I had to read it, because, truly, Favre was all three of those things, and I knew Pearlman would do him justice.

Brett Favre’s pro football career with the Falcons, Packers, Jets, and Vikings lasted an odds-defying 20 years (plus four more years at Southern Miss previous, as some around here will surely remember). Brett Favre’s Packers won the Super Bowl when I was in the fourth grade, and if the other boys in my class didn’t want to be Chipper Jones, they wanted to be Brett Favre.

favre-happy

As Favre’s career stretched infinitely on, he had to not only adapt to the shifting schematics on the field around him, but also to a new media landscape. Pearlman’s perfectly captures how he went from being able to perfectly play Peter King’s strings to having a target on his back at Deadspin. When he finally hung up his cleats for good in 2010, this internet video (warning: suggestive content), a send-up of slick contemporary Nike commercial for LeBron James) was a pitch perfect parody of his public persona and accompanying peccadillos. It hits upon his waffling on retirement, recent sexting scandal, and erratic decisions on field. This is what Brett Favre had become to my generation. Farve had matured a little bit off the field, but still loved attention and was now far behind the media curve.

Brett’s story is as old as Beowulf—the hero can do no wrong when he is young and strong, but as the cliché from numerous sports broadcast says: father time is undefeated. He tries valiantly one time for glory, but comes up short.

favre-reserved

Look, if you are a Favre fan, rest assured: Pearlman is no takedown artist. But as he states at the end of the book, he isn’t trying “to write an ode to Brett, but an explanation of Brett.” Which he accomplishes very well. I feel I understand Favre as more of a three-dimensional person than the caricature he was in the above video. As fans, we don’t need to deify (or crucify) our athletes or celebrities to enjoy or appreciate the work they do. Pearlman has written another deft, dead-on examination of football’s ironman to help hammer home that thesis.

Category: Sports (Page 1 of 6)

‘Stories from 125 Years of Ole Miss Football’ packed with memories, stats, and unforgettable stars

Author Q & A with Neil White (Stories from 125 of Ole Miss Football)

Author Q & A with Margerita Jurkovic

Adding up ‘The Cost of These Dreams’ by Wright Thompson

Print the Legend: ‘All the Way’ by Joe Namath

Author Q & A with Wright Thompson

Margerita’s Gridiron Adventure: The revealing perspective of a Slovenian on Southern football and culture

Finding the Perfect Book for a Football Fan this Christmas

Author Q & A with Paul Lacoste

Gifting the Perfect Book: For Both a Packer’s Backers and His Detractors

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