Lasting Impact: One Team, One Season. What Happens When Our Sons Play Football

by Kostya Kennedy

Overview

New York Times bestselling author Kostya Kennedy sets this captivating, character-rich story against the back-drop of one of the most pressing questions in sports: Should we let our sons play football? At the high end of America's most popular game is the glittering NFL, a fan-stoked money machine and also an opaque enterprise under scrutiny for the physical dangers imposed on its players. Then there's high school football, unrivaled for the crucial life lessons it imparts-discipline, leadership, cooperation, humility, perseverance-yet also a brain-rattling, bone-breaking game whose consequences are at best misunderstood, and, at the very worst, deadly. What is the parent of a young athlete to make of that?

The New Rochelle High School team in suburban New York is like many across the country: a source of civic pride, a manhood workshop for a revered coach and an emotional proving ground for boys of widely different backgrounds. In the fall of 2014, New Rochelle's season unfolded alongside watershed NFL head injury revelations and domestic abuse cases (remember Ray Rice?), as well as fatalities on nearby fields.

The dramatic story of that season, for players, parents and coaches, underscores fundamental questions. Are football's inherent risks so great that the sport may not survive as we know it? Or are those risks worth the rewards that the game continues to bestow, and that can stay with a young man for a lifetime?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781618931573
Publisher:	Sports Illustrated Books
Publication date:	09/06/2016
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

KOSTYA KENNEDY, is the author of 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports and Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. Both were New York Times Bestsellers and both earned the Casey Award as Best Baseball Book of its respective year. A former senior writer and assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated, he is now an editorial director at Time Inc. As an on-air commentator Kennedy contributes regularly to the MLB Network, MSNBC and other news outlets. He teaches at New York University's Tisch Institute for Sports Management, Media, and Business and has taught journalism at NYU and Columbia University. He has edited several books, including The Hockey Book and 2015's Super Bowl Gold: 50 Years of the Big Game.

Table of Contents

Introduction the Question ix

A Note about This Book xv

Chapter 1 Hey, Coach D 1

Chapter 2 Camp Brookwood 10

Chapter 3 Mess Up Your Baseline, Bro 28

Chapter 4 What We Do 40

Chapter 5 Opening Night 52

Chapter 6 A Homegoing 68

Chapter 7 Ray Rice Is Here 85

Chapter 8 The Stand 104

Chapter 9 Once and Always a Huguenot 116

Chapter 10 Elephant in the Locker Room 126

Chapter 11 A Death Too Close to Home 145

Chapter 12 Bullies and Brothers 159

Chapter 13 No. 1 and Knowing It 182

Chapter 14 Arlington 195

Chapter 15 To Play or Not to Play 210

Acknowledgments 229

Selected Bibliography 233

Editorial Reviews

"This riveting story about a high school football team is more than just the intriguing tale of a season. It's also the crucial examination of America's passion for our true national pastime, football."—Christine Brennan, USA Today

"We've read about concussions and worse in the NFL and colleges, and now Kostya Kennedy examines the game at a high school rich in pride, tradition and battle scars. He paints a thoughtful, big-hearted picture of an old-school coach, players whose passion can overwhelm their judgment, second-guessing parents and yesterday's heroes, ranging from a violinist to a convict. 'Make your moment memorable,' one alum tells the team. It is Kennedy, however, who does the most with that advice."—John Schulian, editor of Football: Great Writing About the National Sport

"Takes the energy of Friday Night Lights to a new stage and shows us what comes from playing the game at the center of a great moral debate."—TourÉ

"In a time of football discovery, as we amass evidence for and against the dangerous, exhilarating game, Kennedy reports from the high school sidelines. He's a reliable witness for both sides, offering a clear, thoughtful reflection that will help parents and fans to arrive at a crucial verdict: Should I let my kid play?"—Nicholas Dawidoff, author of Collison Low Crossers

"An echoing book about what football is about: hard-thought facts and heart. Kennedy has plenty of both. Reading him is essential for those who love the game."—Terry McDonell, author of The Accidental Life

From the Publisher

2016-06-01
An award-winning sports biographer returns with an assessment of the medical risks to high school football players.Near the end of the book, former Sports Illustrated assistant managing editor and senior writer Kennedy (Pete Rose: An American Dilemma, 2014, etc.), a clinical professor at NYU's Tisch Institute of Sports Management, Media, and Business, declares what will be clear to readers throughout his text: "I came to writing this book without an agenda, but with high curiosity." Indeed, he does attempt to present evidence from both sides. There are sections about the research on concussions and the enduring physical effects of football on players, about the numbers of deaths occurring during practices and in games, about hazing, and about the sometimes-dark behavior of some celebrated athletes, including NFL star Ray Rice, caught on video punching his future wife (Rice had once played for the New Rochelle high school team that Kennedy shadowed during the 2014 season). The author also attended the funeral service of a former player in a nearby community. Kennedy balances this grimness with the human stories of the New Rochelle players and, especially, legendary head coach Lou DiRienzo, whose voice we hear throughout the text. The author follows the team from summer practices through the New York state playoffs, and we also hear from parents, players, and numerous others. Although Kennedy is careful to explore the immediate world of the players, he says virtually nothing about the effects of football on the rest of the student body. What happens to an educational institution when you celebrate one student activity—a nonacademic one—so enthusiastically? Nor does he wonder how and why we tolerate such dire physical risks in football but really in no other high school activity. Kennedy ably lays out the issues and raises the questions but offers no answers.

Kirkus Reviews