Fading Echoes: A True Story of Rivalry and Brotherhood from the Football Field to the Fields of Honor

by Mike Sielski

Overview

Now in paperback-a true story of hometown heroes.

In a state that prides itself on hard-hitting gridiron epics, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was home to the greatest high school football rivalry: the Central Bucks West, captained by senior fullback/linebacker Bryan Buckley, versus the Central Bucks East, led by senior lineman Colby Umbrell.

Bryan and Colby would meet each other as opponents on the game field, but their dreams and devotion to their country led each of them to the conflict in the Middle East-Colby as an Army Ranger, and Bryan as a Marine.

Only one would make it back to Doylestown. And nothing about them, their families, or their hometown's connection to football would ever be the same

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101139974
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/01/2009
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	401 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Mike Sielski is a sports journalist and author. Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and raised just outside Philadelphia, Mike holds degrees from La Salle University of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has been a sports columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer since 2013 and was named the top sports columnist in America by the Sports Editors of the Associated Press. He is the author of Fading Echoes: A True Story of Rivalry and Brotherhood from the Football Field to the Fields of Honor and the coauthor of How to Be Like Jackie Robinson: Life Lessons from Baseball's Greatest Hero.

Editorial Reviews

Starred Review.

With the biggest high school football rivalry in Pennsylvania as his backdrop, Sielski tells the tale of two opposing Doylestown, Penn. players who each abandoned gridiron dreams to fight in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Central Bucks West senior captain Bryan Buckley and Central Bucks East senior Colby Umbrell, two standout players, graduated in 1999 to pursue collegiate (and possibly professional) ball careers. After Sept. 11, 2001, they were both inspired to abandon sports and serve their country, Buckley with the Marines and Umbrell with the Army Rangers. Both deployed to the Middle East in 2006, but only one survived, a tragedy that shook the idyllic Philadelphia suburb to its core. Local sportswriter Sielski (How to Be Like Jackie Robinson) recreates prep football games, military training and war-time battles in rich detail, based on dozens of interviews, letters and e-mail correspondence. Leagues deeper than most sports stories, this Friday-night-lights tale unfolds into a moving study of war's transforming effect on individuals, families and communities.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

Although this book begins with the football rivalry between two Doylestown, PA, high schools, it's not really about football. It's more a story of the American small towns from which so many extraordinary young men and women of the U.S. armed forces come. Bryan Buckley was the captain of Central Bucks West and Corey Umbrell was one of the leaders of Central Bucks East when their teams clashed in their senior year of 1998. Eight years later, both were officers leading men in combat in Iraq, Buckley as a marine and Umbrell as an army ranger. Both were proudly fighting for ideals in which they believed, and only one would come home alive. Sielski (sports columnist, Calkins Media) chronicles the lives of these two athletes and illustrates how their personalities and values were formed from interactions with family, friends, coaches, and community. In the process, he writes of much broader topics in contemporary American life: dreams, competition, resolve, war, honor, sacrifice, and true heartbreak. VERDICT A very moving, striking story exceptionally well told; for all readers.—John Maxymuk, Rutgers Univ., Camden, lib., NJ

Library Journal