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tofugitive's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to like this book more than I did. I used to be a huge football fan. I was a season ticket holder for the New York Jets, I lived and died with the team to an embarrassing extent. The Jets directly impacted my mental health for years. In high school, I would write their entire 53-man roster and depth chart in my notebook when I was bored in class. I went to college and majored in sports business with the intent of working in sports, hoping to work in football. I now have not watched a full game since 2016, I have not watched a Super Bowl in years, I don't play fantasy football. I'm turned off to the NFL and to football because of many of the reasons covered in this book -- the violence, the glorification of said violence, the culture around the sport from within it to the fandom. I just hit a breaking point to where I couldn't do it anymore.
However, something just felt lacking with this book. It felt incomplete, it felt like there was a lack of depth. Which, I guess, makes sense because it's a short book. But there was just something off about it. I wish it had gone more in depth on the politics of the NFL, as in tax-redemptions, public money spent on stadiums, the imbalance of money players receive vs. what the league/teams generate, etc. There are books that go into a greater depth and detail when it comes to the concussion and CTE aspect, although this book obviously couldn't ignore it. The parts regarding women and homophobia were also a little off as well.
Overall, it's a decent introductory book the reasons someone might give up and not support football or the NFL or college football etc. etc. I give it a 2.5/5 stars, rounding up to 3 since I agree with the premise.
However, something just felt lacking with this book. It felt incomplete, it felt like there was a lack of depth. Which, I guess, makes sense because it's a short book. But there was just something off about it. I wish it had gone more in depth on the politics of the NFL, as in tax-redemptions, public money spent on stadiums, the imbalance of money players receive vs. what the league/teams generate, etc. There are books that go into a greater depth and detail when it comes to the concussion and CTE aspect, although this book obviously couldn't ignore it. The parts regarding women and homophobia were also a little off as well.
Overall, it's a decent introductory book the reasons someone might give up and not support football or the NFL or college football etc. etc. I give it a 2.5/5 stars, rounding up to 3 since I agree with the premise.
toniclark's review
5.0
A brilliant and passionate manifesto! Almond articulates, so succinctly and pointedly, many of my own objections to the football — which I could never have put into words as well. He also raises difficult questions, moral questions, that few are willing to confront. And yet we, Americans, really need to confront them, individually and together.
“What does it mean,” Almond asks, “that the most popular and unifying form of entertainment in America circa 2014 features giant muscled men, mostly African-American, engaged in a sport that causes many of them to suffer brain damage? What does it mean that our society has transmuted the intuitive physical joys of childhood—run, leap, throw, tackle—into a corporatized form of simulated combat? That a collision sport has become the leading signifier of our institutions of higher learning, and the undisputed champ of our colossal Athletic Industrial Complex?”
\This is but one of the dozens of passages I highlighted. And note, Almond is a lifelong fan of the sport. I would go so far as to say fanatic at times. Me? I don’t like football. I don’t watch football. I’d never have thought I could read a book about football. But the questions Almond raises are so compelling and the writing is so damn good, I just couldn’t put it down and can’t rate it highly enough.
“What does it mean,” Almond asks, “that the most popular and unifying form of entertainment in America circa 2014 features giant muscled men, mostly African-American, engaged in a sport that causes many of them to suffer brain damage? What does it mean that our society has transmuted the intuitive physical joys of childhood—run, leap, throw, tackle—into a corporatized form of simulated combat? That a collision sport has become the leading signifier of our institutions of higher learning, and the undisputed champ of our colossal Athletic Industrial Complex?”
\This is but one of the dozens of passages I highlighted. And note, Almond is a lifelong fan of the sport. I would go so far as to say fanatic at times. Me? I don’t like football. I don’t watch football. I’d never have thought I could read a book about football. But the questions Almond raises are so compelling and the writing is so damn good, I just couldn’t put it down and can’t rate it highly enough.
jelek86's review
5.0
At the very least, Almond gives us football fans something to think about here. At most, he gives us a multitude of thoughtful, level-headed, but still passionate reasons why we should reconsider our support of the most popular thing in the USA.
helpfulsnowman's review
5.0
The NFL is a tax-exempt organization.
Let's just begin there before we get any deeper into this. Whether or not you would walk into this review as a huge football fan, if you can't agree that there is a problem when the money-making juggernaut that is the NFL is TAX EXEMPT, then I think you should stop reading right here.
In Against Football, Steve Almond lays out in clear, concise language, the problems with American football, of which there are many.
I didn't pick up this book because I saw something that was anti-football and thought it would align with how I feel. It's true, I don't really enjoy watching football. I've always thought it was kind of crazy the amount of devotion people showed to geographically-based teams composed of men who don't play for their home state and often don't even live there full time. But honestly, I really enjoy books and movies about sports. I lack the patience or the quietness of the soul or the stockpile of Doritos or whatever it is that might let me sit in front of the TV for 4+ hours on a Sunday watching what is, statistically, likely to be an unremarkable match with a few highlights. But I like a great sports story, and I'm always up for a highlight reel.
That said, after reading this book, I'm firmly in the anti-football camp. Especially when it comes to anyone under 16 playing tackle football.
This book, it's an important read for everyone because we're all taxpayers and consumers of entertainment. It's REQUIRED reading if you're thinking about whether or not it's a good idea to let your child play football. I try not to make judgments about how other people conduct their lives, but I'm telling you right now, if you have a boy who is considering football, set aside the hour it takes to read this book. If you skip this book, you are not upholding some sort of morality or ideology. You are denying yourself the opportunity to even ASK THE QUESTIONS about what football might mean for the longevity, emotional stability, and cognitive ability of your child. I'm not judging a parent who lets a child play football...okay, yes I am. Now, anyway. But there's a lot of misinformation and crap swirling out there, so what I'm really judging is the parent who, made aware of the existence of this information, does not avail him or herself of it.
I'm not normally in the habit of summarizing books in a review because it sort of spoils the reading experience. However, I think that there are some key points in here that are really important, whether you are a sports fan or not, and with apologies to Mr. Almond, I'd like to talk about a few of them.
+Retired football players are NINETEEN times more likely to suffer from brain-related illness than non-players, and retired players die 20 years earlier on average.
20 years. Think about that. Not in the abstract. Think about what your life would be like if your parent died 20 years earlier. How different the world would be if the average male life expectancy was in the 50's.
What's really fucked up, the NFL did its own "study" and found players live longer than the average person. How did they find the exact opposite of the first study? What they did is compare ALL human men as opposed to college-educated males. So in their study, you've got people with chronic diseases. You've got people who died before their 10th birthday. The stats are fucked, whereas in the first, correct version, NFL players were compared to college-educated males, which most of them are.
+Taxpayers funded 70 percent of the construction costs of the stadiums in which the NFL plays.
The old saw here is that pro sports bring a lot of business to town. Maybe, sure. However, let's put this in simple financial terms. For what business would you put up 70% of the capital and expect absolutely nothing as a return on your investment? Why would it be wrong to then have the taxpayers reap 70% of the benefits from that stadium? The NFL is set to earn $10 BILLION this year. That would mean $7 BILLION would go back into the nation's budget. In one year, only because we asked for the return on our investment.
According to the book here, even if the cities asked for only the return of the cost of building and maintaining the stadiums, we'd still be talking hundreds of millions of dollars returned to the local economy.
More to the point and close to my own heart, how the fuck is it that these tax-funded stadiums don't require a vote?
The current state, as put by Almond: "Think about how insane our cultural priorities are that we're allowing so much money to be siphoned from the public till and funneled directly into the private koi ponds of the nation's wealthiest families. That arrangement isn't even capitalist. It's feudal."
+The NFL is tax-exempt.
Note that the NBA and MLB are not. Football is the only one. 501(c)6, baby.
+I'm just going to quote the book directly on this one, Almond's summary of the NFL questions surrounding the draft of Michael Sam, the first openly-gay player in NFL history, and the tenor of so many news reports and articles asking if the NFL was "ready" for an openly-gay player:
"A workplace exists, Circa 2014, in Which the Prospect of Accommodating a Single Openly Gay Employee Is Enough to Induce Panic."
+The book and the movie The Blind Side ask the question of whether an impovershed African-American would have been adopted by a well-to-do white family if it weren't for his football skills.
They both ask the question, and they fail to answer it. One has to wonder if the answer is not forthcoming because that answer is No.
+High School players receive more blows to the head than college players, and because their brains are still developing, these blows do more damage.
+Researchers at Purdue University studied the effects of concussions on high school players. They set up a study using non-concussed players as a control group, however they found that even those who did not suffer concussions showed plummeting levels of cognitive ability as the football season continued.
Almond, again:
"What would happen if some invisible gas leak in the school cafeteria caused diminished brain activity in students? Can we safely assume district officials would evacuate the school until further notice? That parents would be up in arms? That media and lawyers would descend in droves to collect statements from the innocent victims? Can we assume that the community would not gather together en masse on Friday nights to eat hot dogs and watch the gas leak?
+Buzz Bissinger, who wrote Friday Night Lights, believes football should be banned in high school and college.
+45% of Division I football players never graduate college.
+Football players are disposable, abused athletes.
If it helps you sleep at night, feel free to say that they know what they're doing and they get paid proportionally to their risk. If it helps you sleep at night, don't look into what Jim McMahon has to say. Or Brett Favre coming to tears when he says he doesn't remember his daughter playing soccer. Don't look into the facts behind Junior Seau's suicide.
That's just a little bit of what's in here.
I suspect, based on some emails shared in the book, that Almond is going to get a lot of flack for this book, especially of the "don't be such an artsy pussy" variety. As a self-proclaimed artsy pussy, I can say it's not that bad. Because really, I'd ask you this back: Is the coward the person who addresses questions not by answering, but by questioning the character of who asked them, or is the coward the person who asks some very unpopular questions while being fully aware of the consequences?
Almond, yet again:
"I'm going to get hammered for asking these questions. Fine. Hammer away But don't pretend that's the same as answering."
As a final note, what can you do if you think any of the stuff above is wrong. Stop football. For yourself. Stop watching, stop participating.
Almond relates the story of Howard Cosell, well-known sports announcer, who announced a boxing match and then declared the sport brutal, saying he'd never announce another boxing match again.
Almond, one last time:
"Did Cosell's boycott end boxing as we know it? No. That's not the point. You take a stand because it's the right thing to do, not because it's effective."
Let's just begin there before we get any deeper into this. Whether or not you would walk into this review as a huge football fan, if you can't agree that there is a problem when the money-making juggernaut that is the NFL is TAX EXEMPT, then I think you should stop reading right here.
In Against Football, Steve Almond lays out in clear, concise language, the problems with American football, of which there are many.
I didn't pick up this book because I saw something that was anti-football and thought it would align with how I feel. It's true, I don't really enjoy watching football. I've always thought it was kind of crazy the amount of devotion people showed to geographically-based teams composed of men who don't play for their home state and often don't even live there full time. But honestly, I really enjoy books and movies about sports. I lack the patience or the quietness of the soul or the stockpile of Doritos or whatever it is that might let me sit in front of the TV for 4+ hours on a Sunday watching what is, statistically, likely to be an unremarkable match with a few highlights. But I like a great sports story, and I'm always up for a highlight reel.
That said, after reading this book, I'm firmly in the anti-football camp. Especially when it comes to anyone under 16 playing tackle football.
This book, it's an important read for everyone because we're all taxpayers and consumers of entertainment. It's REQUIRED reading if you're thinking about whether or not it's a good idea to let your child play football. I try not to make judgments about how other people conduct their lives, but I'm telling you right now, if you have a boy who is considering football, set aside the hour it takes to read this book. If you skip this book, you are not upholding some sort of morality or ideology. You are denying yourself the opportunity to even ASK THE QUESTIONS about what football might mean for the longevity, emotional stability, and cognitive ability of your child. I'm not judging a parent who lets a child play football...okay, yes I am. Now, anyway. But there's a lot of misinformation and crap swirling out there, so what I'm really judging is the parent who, made aware of the existence of this information, does not avail him or herself of it.
I'm not normally in the habit of summarizing books in a review because it sort of spoils the reading experience. However, I think that there are some key points in here that are really important, whether you are a sports fan or not, and with apologies to Mr. Almond, I'd like to talk about a few of them.
+Retired football players are NINETEEN times more likely to suffer from brain-related illness than non-players, and retired players die 20 years earlier on average.
20 years. Think about that. Not in the abstract. Think about what your life would be like if your parent died 20 years earlier. How different the world would be if the average male life expectancy was in the 50's.
What's really fucked up, the NFL did its own "study" and found players live longer than the average person. How did they find the exact opposite of the first study? What they did is compare ALL human men as opposed to college-educated males. So in their study, you've got people with chronic diseases. You've got people who died before their 10th birthday. The stats are fucked, whereas in the first, correct version, NFL players were compared to college-educated males, which most of them are.
+Taxpayers funded 70 percent of the construction costs of the stadiums in which the NFL plays.
The old saw here is that pro sports bring a lot of business to town. Maybe, sure. However, let's put this in simple financial terms. For what business would you put up 70% of the capital and expect absolutely nothing as a return on your investment? Why would it be wrong to then have the taxpayers reap 70% of the benefits from that stadium? The NFL is set to earn $10 BILLION this year. That would mean $7 BILLION would go back into the nation's budget. In one year, only because we asked for the return on our investment.
According to the book here, even if the cities asked for only the return of the cost of building and maintaining the stadiums, we'd still be talking hundreds of millions of dollars returned to the local economy.
More to the point and close to my own heart, how the fuck is it that these tax-funded stadiums don't require a vote?
The current state, as put by Almond: "Think about how insane our cultural priorities are that we're allowing so much money to be siphoned from the public till and funneled directly into the private koi ponds of the nation's wealthiest families. That arrangement isn't even capitalist. It's feudal."
+The NFL is tax-exempt.
Note that the NBA and MLB are not. Football is the only one. 501(c)6, baby.
+I'm just going to quote the book directly on this one, Almond's summary of the NFL questions surrounding the draft of Michael Sam, the first openly-gay player in NFL history, and the tenor of so many news reports and articles asking if the NFL was "ready" for an openly-gay player:
"A workplace exists, Circa 2014, in Which the Prospect of Accommodating a Single Openly Gay Employee Is Enough to Induce Panic."
+The book and the movie The Blind Side ask the question of whether an impovershed African-American would have been adopted by a well-to-do white family if it weren't for his football skills.
They both ask the question, and they fail to answer it. One has to wonder if the answer is not forthcoming because that answer is No.
+High School players receive more blows to the head than college players, and because their brains are still developing, these blows do more damage.
+Researchers at Purdue University studied the effects of concussions on high school players. They set up a study using non-concussed players as a control group, however they found that even those who did not suffer concussions showed plummeting levels of cognitive ability as the football season continued.
Almond, again:
"What would happen if some invisible gas leak in the school cafeteria caused diminished brain activity in students? Can we safely assume district officials would evacuate the school until further notice? That parents would be up in arms? That media and lawyers would descend in droves to collect statements from the innocent victims? Can we assume that the community would not gather together en masse on Friday nights to eat hot dogs and watch the gas leak?
+Buzz Bissinger, who wrote Friday Night Lights, believes football should be banned in high school and college.
+45% of Division I football players never graduate college.
+Football players are disposable, abused athletes.
If it helps you sleep at night, feel free to say that they know what they're doing and they get paid proportionally to their risk. If it helps you sleep at night, don't look into what Jim McMahon has to say. Or Brett Favre coming to tears when he says he doesn't remember his daughter playing soccer. Don't look into the facts behind Junior Seau's suicide.
That's just a little bit of what's in here.
I suspect, based on some emails shared in the book, that Almond is going to get a lot of flack for this book, especially of the "don't be such an artsy pussy" variety. As a self-proclaimed artsy pussy, I can say it's not that bad. Because really, I'd ask you this back: Is the coward the person who addresses questions not by answering, but by questioning the character of who asked them, or is the coward the person who asks some very unpopular questions while being fully aware of the consequences?
Almond, yet again:
"I'm going to get hammered for asking these questions. Fine. Hammer away But don't pretend that's the same as answering."
As a final note, what can you do if you think any of the stuff above is wrong. Stop football. For yourself. Stop watching, stop participating.
Almond relates the story of Howard Cosell, well-known sports announcer, who announced a boxing match and then declared the sport brutal, saying he'd never announce another boxing match again.
Almond, one last time:
"Did Cosell's boycott end boxing as we know it? No. That's not the point. You take a stand because it's the right thing to do, not because it's effective."
michael5000's review
4.0
Here's what I wrote in the forum on the book's website.
"I am almost ready to leave behind my enthusiasm for football. I do not know if your book exactly convinced me of much — indeed, much of its argument seems tailored to someone with a more refined sense of morality than I could ever boast of — but it has perhaps help me sort out my increasingly conflicted feelings about the sport. I don’t think I would have picked up the book if I weren’t ready to be swayed.
But like St. Augustine with chastity, I need a little time to make the change. At the close of a long tenure as an Oregon Ducks fan, I specifically need — depending on what happens at the Rose Bowl — until either tomorrow or until January 12th. Even when you are just letting young athletes fulfill your need for cathartic emotional experience, there’s something to be said for quitting while you’re ahead. Right?"
"I am almost ready to leave behind my enthusiasm for football. I do not know if your book exactly convinced me of much — indeed, much of its argument seems tailored to someone with a more refined sense of morality than I could ever boast of — but it has perhaps help me sort out my increasingly conflicted feelings about the sport. I don’t think I would have picked up the book if I weren’t ready to be swayed.
But like St. Augustine with chastity, I need a little time to make the change. At the close of a long tenure as an Oregon Ducks fan, I specifically need — depending on what happens at the Rose Bowl — until either tomorrow or until January 12th. Even when you are just letting young athletes fulfill your need for cathartic emotional experience, there’s something to be said for quitting while you’re ahead. Right?"
graggirl's review
4.0
I read this book at the end of summer just as the Facebook posts began to go up about kids starting football and the Ray Rice scandal continued. I felt like my opinion didn't matter. Football has always been too brutal for me and not a sport I enjoyed watching. But now that I have seen hospital pictures of more than one friend's son on stretcher while scrolling my Facebook feed I feel my voice does matter. This book should be read by all taxpayers and parents. There is huge problems in football and how it is protected with taxpayer money and how the problems associated with are perpetuated. Fans should read this book. And then if they still love football great, but like all things you should be an informed consumer. This football season is more troublesome to me after reading this book. I think some really good points are made in this book.
thishannah's review
I didn't need much convincing, so this book mostly just confirmed my pre-existing worldview. At most, I went from casual indifference toward football to active dislike. If Almond's goal is to convince fans to stop supporting a corrupt industry, I don't think I'm really the target audience, since I rarely watch or follow the game anyway. I would encourage my football fan friends to read this, particularly those who are on the fence about their feelings toward the sport.
isabelreads's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
A slim brilliant barrage in the fight against football. I discovered Almond's book thanks to Savywritesbooks video on the Blindside and the scandals that emerged from it. My only critique is honestly that I'm dying for a 10th or 15th anniversary edition. I think Almond and other football skeptics and critics were really on the edge of something that exploded post 2014 thanks to Kapernick, Trump, and NCAA image rights, etc. I think it would be worth it to see how Almond's views have continued to evolve. From what I saw.on Savy's channel, he's still as biting on this topic as he ever was (esp for a white man) and I'd be excited to see more from him on football!
debi_g's review
"There are all sorts of laudable reasons people watch sports, and football in particular. We wish to reconnect to the unscripted physical pleasures of childhood. We wish for moral structure in a world that feels chaotic, a chance to scratch the inborn itch for tribal affiliation. Sports allow men, in particular, a common language by which to converse."
Regarding The Blind Side: "When his GPA proves too low for the NCAA, his adoptive father, a canny former college basketball star...finds a loophole. He has Oher tested to prove he's learning disabled, then has him take numerous easy, online course. [The author] treats these measures as ingenious. We are meant to cheer the fact that Oher has gamed the educational process."
"I'm going to get hammered for asking these questions. Fine. Hammer away. But don't pretend that's the same as answering."
"You have the classic stereotype of the dumb jock and I think the real issue is that's not how they start out...we actually create that individual."
"Buzz Bissinger, author of the book Friday Night Lights...now believes football should be banned in high school and college."
"You simply can't explain to a child that there is this weird thing called CTE, and in twenty years you might suffer substantial cognitive deficits." --Ivan Hannel, CTW: The Developing Case Against HS Football
"Fun fact: 45 percent of Division I football players never graduate."
"...the world of sports 'journalism' serves as a promotional division of the Athletic Industrial Complex."
Regarding The Blind Side: "When his GPA proves too low for the NCAA, his adoptive father, a canny former college basketball star...finds a loophole. He has Oher tested to prove he's learning disabled, then has him take numerous easy, online course. [The author] treats these measures as ingenious. We are meant to cheer the fact that Oher has gamed the educational process."
"I'm going to get hammered for asking these questions. Fine. Hammer away. But don't pretend that's the same as answering."
"You have the classic stereotype of the dumb jock and I think the real issue is that's not how they start out...we actually create that individual."
"Buzz Bissinger, author of the book Friday Night Lights...now believes football should be banned in high school and college."
"You simply can't explain to a child that there is this weird thing called CTE, and in twenty years you might suffer substantial cognitive deficits." --Ivan Hannel, CTW: The Developing Case Against HS Football
"Fun fact: 45 percent of Division I football players never graduate."
"...the world of sports 'journalism' serves as a promotional division of the Athletic Industrial Complex."