Good nonfiction about an amateur who was allowed to play with the Detroit Lions for a short time. George Plimpton is a good writer. I like how he tried so many things and then wrote about them. ( )

This interesting tale of the writer who joins the Detroit Lions for preseason training is a bit dated now. George Plimpton writes about his experiences in the training camp, mainly as the "last string quarterback," but also his attempts to learn other positions. Most of the book consists of descriptions of the other players and how they interact with each other: the hazing of the rookies, for example.

I'm not a fan of football, and know next to nothing about football in the late 1950s or early 1960s (with which this book is primarily concerned), so a lot of the information was probably lost on me. I didn't recognize the players' or coaches' names and I didn't get the references to big plays of the past. I read the book because I had heard of it as a classic in the genre of sports writing and I wanted to find out more. The writing was very good; I just didn't understand the football. The idea of an ordinary guy trying out for the professional football team has some appeal, though it seems completely ludicrous, and that's pretty much what Plimpton discovers: he isn't nearly as good as he would need to be to make the team at any position.

The other interesting aspect of the book (aside from the juicy football gossip) was the glimpse into a time gone by. The summer of Plimpton's experiment was long before I was born, so I was curious to find out how people (at least professional football players) lived then. The picture I saw was more working class, more urban, and simpler than my own life today. The players drink a lot of beer, they go to dance halls in the evening and practice actual dance steps together, they play cards, they do isometric exercises and there is no discussion of weight lifting or jogging, and they avoid milk and other foods that are bad for the "wind," whatever that means. In the off-season, they have regular jobs because football doesn't pay much. They drive beat up old cars and they are always one bad game away from being off the team. In fact, most of the professional teams do not even have their own stadiums to play in: the Lions played in Tiger Stadium, for example!

In summary, I think a sports fan, especially a football fan, would get a lot more enjoyment out of this book than I did. ( )

Saw that a local book club was reading this, realized I had never read it so gave it a whirl. Can't say I enjoyed it.... didn't think it was particularly well-written. Too much talking with players outside of the practice field and describing events in flashbacks. The on-field events were well done though. ( )

I know almost nothing about football. I’ve played maybe one or two touch football games in middle school around Thanksgiving. I’m not sure that I’ve ever watched an entire Super Bowl, let alone another game. I’ve heard of the infamous Harvard vs. Yale game, and hope to get a chance to attend some day. So why did I pick up this book?

I recently heard Michael Pollan say that, as a teenager, his parents gave him a copy of this book. Although Pollan has chosen a very different set up subjects than Plimpton, his approach is somewhat similar: taking a hands-on amateur approach to journalism. As a Pollan fan and an amateur writer myself, I thought I would read this book to see where Pollan received some of his early journalistic influence.

The premise of the book focuses around Plimpton’s journey in the mid sixties to be placed on a professional football team, culminating in the aim of playing a few games. After years of trying, Plimpton succeeded in joining the Detroit Lyons for three weeks of their pre-season training, although he failed to join them for any pro-league games.

Plimpton claims that his thesis is that being a professional football player isn’t something most people can do. As might be assumed, he is able to prove this point with his own failings as a player. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make for a very compelling narrative, as it reinforces our assumptions and doesn’t lead us to an evolution in our understanding of the subject. It would have been more exciting if, for example, Plimpton actually was able to be able to keep up with the pros. Or, alternately, if he were to take a less obvious stance.

I learned that football is a lot like chess. The field is laid out like a board, with different “holes” representing different places on the field that players move to. Also, there are a number of different positions with very different roles, builds, and abilities (such as linebacker versus quarter back). Also, players must memorize hundreds of different plays, to be called by the quarter back in the huddle and performed just moments later.

I was surprised by how much like children or soldiers was the treatment of football players during that era, such as curfew and punishments. Also, I was surprised to hear that most professional football players were toothless during that eras, even though they were in their youth—presumably due to the violence of the game and the lack of adequate protective gear. Although, I guess football players today still sustain permanent brain damage even with all their protection, which is far worse than missing teeth.

Apparently Plimpton had quite the remarkable life. He was a bit of a socialite—editor of The Paris Review, friends with Robert Kennedy, and constantly interfacing with different professional athletes (over the years he did a number of other projects structure in type to “Paper Lion”). He seems as though he was an exceedingly friendly and personable guy, able to ingratiate himself to all walk of society.

In the book, he references the evolution of the sport. Given that it was published more than fifty years ago, I assume the game has changed a lot since then, and I’m curious as to how.

Given the hype this book has received—some critics calling the best piece of sport journalism ever written—I was a little let down. Although it is entertaining, I don’t feel as though the book revealed any deeper truths, or spoke to much beyond the day-to-day of a professional athlete. Maybe it’s the kind of book that would be riveting for a football player or fan, but as I am neither, I found it nice but not excellent. ( )

I've liked the work of Alan Alda ever since M.A.S.H., so when this came on TV, I decided to watch it. This was before the NFL became big in the UK, so most, if not all, of the game play went over my head. However, in time, the NFL was televised here, I became an armchair fan, and this is the 1989 edition, bought from the now-closed Sports Pages bookshop in Charing Cross Road, London. My son-in-law's family live near Detroit, so when I visit (during the NFL season, of course), I'll take in a game