A Few Seconds of Panic: A 5-Foot-8, 170-Pound, 43-Year-Old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL
by Stefan Fatsis
List Price:
Our Price: $12.97
You Save: $12.98 (50%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Stefan FatsisEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-07-03
ISBN: 1594201781
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Book Reviews of A Few Seconds of Panic: A 5-Foot-8, 170-Pound, 43-Year-Old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL
Book Review: This ain't no Word Freak
Summary: 2 Stars
Jason Elam, the Broncos' most successful place kicker described a kicker's experience in the NFL as "hours and hours of boredom surrounded by a few seconds of panic."
A few seconds of panic set in the moment I realized Mr. Fatsis was barred by the NFL from participating in even a pre-season game. A few more seconds of panic followed as I read Mr. Fatsis' bitter and unjustified complaints about why the NFL was steadfast in its refusal to allow him to kick in a pre-season game. According to Mr. Brian McCarthy, an NFL PR personnel, "people are paying seventy, ninety, a hundred and twenty dollars and then having someone from off the street come in - it could have the appearance of an exhibition, which we fight. I wouldn't use the word joke, but..." In response, and a shameful one at that, Mr. Fatsis proceeds to call the NFL a fraud for forcing fans to buy tickets to pre-season games, and a joke because all the run-ins NFL players have had with the law and the criminals who are allowed to play. Yet, he, who has worked "assiduously" for months to prepare for this glorious moment is made to feel like a joke.
Granted, Mr. Fatsis worked assiduously to play in the NFL, but he also assiduously shanked balls in practice, particularly during moments of pressure when players and fans were watching. Mr. Fatsis' length of experience in place kicking didn't extend beyond a few months. Just why he felt like he was deserving of a chance to play in the NFL is baffling.
Whereas in "Word Freak", Mr. Fatsis' participation in Scrabble and ultimately his rise to the rank of "expert" made the book a delightful read, in "A few seconds of panic", everything but his participation in Football took centerstage.
"A Few Seconds of Panic" provides a glimpse of "what players endure to get there, and what they experience once they arrive. And it revealed the deep disconnect between what fans see on gameday and what happens the rest of the week.", but it fails to deliver on its promise of a successful story of an average Joe playing with the pros.
Summary of A Few Seconds of Panic: A 5-Foot-8, 170-Pound, 43-Year-Old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL
Drawing on rare access to an NFL team?s players, coaches and facilities, the author of The New York Times bestseller Word Freak trains to become a professional-caliber placekicker. As he sharpens his skills, he gains surprising insight into the daunting challenges?physical, psychological, and intellectual?that pro athletes must masterIn Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis infiltrated the insular world of competitive Scrabble? players, ultimately achieving ?expert? status (comparable to a grandmaster ranking in chess). Now he infiltrates a strikingly different subculture?pro football. After more than a year spent working out with a strength coach and polishing his craft with a gurulike kicking coach, Fatsis molded his fortyish body into one that could stand up?barely?to the rigors of NFL training. And over three months in 2006, he became a Denver Bronco. He trained with the team and lived with the players. He was given a locker and uniforms emblazoned with #9. He was expected to perform all the drills and regimens required of other kickers. He was unlike his teammates in some ways?most notably, his livelihood was not on the line as theirs was. But he became remarkably like them in many ways: He risked crippling injury just as they did, he endured the hazing that befalls all rookies, he gorged on 4,000 daily calories, he slogged through two-a-day practices in blistering heat. Not since George Plimpton?s stint as a Detroit Lion more than forty years ago has a writer tunneled so deeply into the NFL.
At first, the players tolerated Fatsis, or treated him like a mascot, but over time they began to think of him as one of them. And he began to think like one of them. Like the other Broncos?like all elite athletes?he learned to perfect a motion through thousands of repetitions, to play through pain, to silence the crowd?s roar, to banish self-doubt.
While Fatsis honed his mind and drove his body past exhaustion, he communed with every classic athletic type?the affable alpha male, the overpaid brat, the youthful phenom, the savvy veteran?and a welter of bracingly atypical players as well: a fullback who invokes Aristotle, a quarterback who embraces yoga, a tight end who takes creative writing classes in the off-season. Fatsis also witnessed the hidden machinery of a top-flight football franchise, from the God-is-in-the-details strategizing of legendary coach Mike Shanahan to the icy calculation with which the front office makes or breaks careers.
With wry candor and hard-won empathy, A Few Seconds of Panic unveils the mind of the modern pro athlete and the workings of a storied sports franchise as no book ever has before.
General Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in General Books
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.)by Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.85
Price in other shops:
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dreamby Barack Obama
Three Rivers Press; Published: 2007-11-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.62
Price in other shops:
My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Standsby Chelsea Handler
Bloomsbury USA; Published: 2005-06-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.70
Price in other shops:
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesiaby Elizabeth Gilbert
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2007-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.40
Price in other shops:
Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelseaby Chelsea Handler
Simon Spotlight Entertainment; Published: 2008-04-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.75
Price in other shops:
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journeyby Jill Bolte Taylor
Viking Adult; Published: 2008-05-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.73
Price in other shops:
sTORI Tellingby Tori Spelling
Simon Spotlight; Published: 2008-03-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.72
Price in other shops:
Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sonsby Tim Russert
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2007-05-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.97
Price in other shops:
Big Russ and Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Lifeby Tim Russert
Miramax; Published: 2005-05-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.65
Price in other shops:
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Timeby Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2007-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.04
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired Americaby Thurston Clarke
Henry Holt and Co.; Published: 2008-05-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.63
Price in other shops:
Lush Life: A Novelby Richard Price
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2008-03-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.25
Price in other shops:
The Post-American Worldby Fareed Zakaria
W. W. Norton; Published: 2008-05-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.24
Price in other shops:
Pro Football Prospectus 2008: The Essential Guide to the 2008 Pro Football Season (Pro Football Prospectus)Plume; Published: 2008-07-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.03
Price in other shops:
God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person, and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (And How We Can Get It Back)by Will Leitch
Harper; Published: 2008-02-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.70
Price in other shops:
Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the Worldby David Maraniss
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2008-07-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.99
Price in other shops:
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novelby David Wroblewski
Ecco; Published: 2008-06-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.79
Price in other shops:
When You Are Engulfed in Flamesby David Sedaris
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2008-06-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.49
Price in other shops:
Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive ScrabblePlayersby Stefan Fatsis
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.75
Price in other shops:
The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFLby Mark Bowden
Atlantic Monthly Press; Published: 2008-05-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.96
Price in other shops: