Daily briefing, the ‘Holiday Book Guide’ edition
Ivan Maisel’s “Daily Briefing” for On3:
Buy now, thank me later
Three books for the college football fan on your list, and I will stipulate that the authors are press box friends and/or former colleagues. But trust me: The books are good.
“We Want Bama: A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban’s Ultimate Team,” by Joseph Goodman (Grand Central Publishing). This is not the typical fly-on-the-wall biography of a season, and thank God for it. “We Want Bama” is a rollicking, ribald, rum punch of history, sociology and microscopic study of the genus Tidus Crimsonus, written by an al.com columnist. It would be merely gut-busting funny if it weren’t devastatingly and occasionally horrifyingly true. What saves “We Want Bama” from being a hipster screed is that Goodman’s love of state, culture and college football shines on every page.
Top 10
- 1Live
Vols react to Arkansas loss
No. 4 Tennessee falls to Razorbacks
- 2
Diego Pavia
Meet the electric Vanderbilt QB that knocked off No. 1 Alabama
- 3Live
Tide Fans Meltdown
No. 1 Alabama falls to Vanderbilt
- 4Trending
Goalposts hit Broadway
Vanderbilt fans carry goal posts through Nashville
- 5
Kirby Smart calls out fans
Georgia head coach unhappy with home crowd
“Haven’t They Suffered Enough?” by Beano Cook and John D. Lukacs (White Valley Press). If you miss Beano like I miss Beano, then thank Lukacs for picking up this ball and carrying it across the goal line. Beano, my former ESPN College Football Podcast partner, died in 2012, and he has a story to tell about what college football was like in the 1950s, when he got started as the Pitt sports information director, and of how sports television evolved from the 1960s through the 1990s. Lukacs made a smart choice in letting Beano be politically incorrect. Beano was nothing if not self-aware. He knew he could be the too-loudest voice in the room, but he loved people, loved honesty and punctured pomposity at every turn. I loved spending time with him again.
“Out of the Pocket,” by Kirk Herbstreit with Gene Wojciechowski (Atria Books). What sets this book apart from the genre of jock-turned-announcer books is that Herbstreit has a story to tell. The self-assured, good-looking quarterback grew up in a broken home. The trusted TV voice grew up too shy to speak in class. The I’ve-got-it-all celebrity started with nothing more than a chance behind a microphone in a Columbus radio station. Herbstreit worked hard to get where he is. There is substance here, well-delivered with the help of Wojciechowski, who writes at book length as elegantly as he writes his ESPN College GameDay features and essays.