"A lyrical memoir . . . about his teammates, his coaches, his parents
and the magnetic power of football in Louisiana."--NPR
"The best sports book of the year."--Sports Illustrated
Inspired by a classic essay about a visit to a dying coach, It Never
Rains in Tiger Stadium explores in gorgeous detail the inescapable pull
of college football--the cocky smiles behind the face masks, the
two-a-day drills, the emotionally charged bus rides to the stadium, the
curfew checks, the film-study sessions, the locker room antics, and the
yawning void left in one's soul the moment the final whistle sounds.
To understand why it's so painful to give up the game, you must first
understand the intimacy of the huddle. "It ends for everybody," writes
John Ed Bradley, "and then it starts all over again, in ways you never
anticipated. Marty Dufresne sits in his wheelchair listening to the
Tiger fight song . . . Ramsey Darder endures prison by playing the games
over in his head . . . Big Ed Stanton never took up the game of golf,
and yet he rides the streets of Bayou Vista in a cart nearly identical
to Coach Mac's, recalling the one time the old man invited him for a
ride." Far more than a memoir, It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium is a
brutally honest, profoundly moving look at what it means to surrender
something you love.
