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IT NEVER RAINS IN TIGER STADIUM: FOOTBALL AND THE GAME OF LIFE
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Music Books > Beatles > Item 3
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IT NEVER RAINS IN TIGER STADIUM: FOOTBALL AND THE GAME OF LIFE
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by John Ed Bradley
Sales Rank: 1308
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List Price: $24.95
$16.47
At Amazon
on 12-29-2007.
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Features
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: ESPN; 1 edition September 4, 2007
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1933060336
ISBN-13: 978-1933060330
Product Dimensions:
8.9 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
Book Description
"It was the biggest high you could have. No drugs could match it. The way it felt to run out there with the crowd yelling for you. I wish every kid could experience that."Such was the charmed life of 21-year-old John Ed Bradley, All-SEC center for the Louisiana State University Tigers. But after his final football game, a 34-10 Tiger romp over Wake Forest in the 1979 Tangerine Bowl, he firmly closed the door to his locker and to his past. He moved on, seemingly untouched by the game, to become a successful journalist and novelist.But Bradley couldn't help looking back, and soon that past was right in front of him. After the deaths of his old coach, Charles McClendon, and a fellow lineman, Bradley could no longer fight off his Tiger memories. Twenty-three years later, he still knew the names, weights, and jersey numbers of the teammates he had called brothers, and whom he had been neglecting ever since.It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium is inspired by Bradley's classic essay "The Best Years of His Life," which appears in Sports Illustrated: Fifty Years of Great Writing. It chronicles his rediscovery of the team that he had long forsaken but never forgotten, and his search for forgiveness from teammates who had never forgotten him.
About The Author
John Ed Bradley is the author of several highly praised novels, including Tupelo Nights and My Juliet. A former staff writer for The Washington Post, Bradley has contributed features to Sports Illustrated, Esquire, and GQ. He lives in Opelousas, Louisiana.
Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
This is the autobiography of a young man named John Ed Bradley who lettered in football for four years at Louisiana State University. (LSU) Despite the fact that the only position more impressive in Louisiana than playing football for LSU would be Governor, this is oh so much more than a sports story! John Ed's football career at LSU culminated on December 22, 1979 with a 34-10 victory over Wake Forest in the Tangerine Bowl. At that point John Ed decided to put his entire lifetime football experience behind him, including any contact with any of his teammates or coaches. Though at first blush, the reader might feel, like John Ed did, that this was just a step in the maturation of a child putting aside childhood toys, but twenty-seven years later, John Ed agonizingly realized with excruciating sadness, that his choice reverberated with echoing emptiness in the deepest chambers of his heart and soul. The writing style of John Ed is akin to romantic poetry, instead of the "click-click-click" staccato you would expect from your everyday sports section in your local newspaper. The reader, with just a little imagination can become ensconced, as if you're involved in a youthful breakup with a lover, that you walked away from a quarter of a century ago, and though you've refused to look back on whether you did the right thing or not so many years ago, an alignment of your life's planets has forced you to re-examine with fresh eyes and heart, the scene you left frozen in another time. John Ed was asked by teachers, "What was it like?".... He was asked by bankers, "What was it like?"... He was asked by women, "What was it like?" He was asked by students, "What was it like?" "TO PLAY FOOTBALL AT LSU!?" HE SAID: "WE WALKED BETWEEN THE RAINDROPS. THAT PRETTY WELL DESCRIBES HOW WE THOUGHT ABOUT OURSELVES. NOTHING COULD TOUCH US, INCLUDING THE RAIN. AND OF COURSE IT WAS AMAZING HOW PEOPLE TREATED YOU OUT IN PUBLIC!" And then twenty-seven years later, it hit John Ed like a million tons of raindrops, and he poetically wrote: "I miss football so much. I miss it like you can't believe. I miss the things I didn't value or pay much attention to when I had them. I don't miss the games so much, the people in the stadium. I miss being a part of something. I only have myself to worry about now, and it's about worn me out. The weird thing is I've even started to miss the guys I didn't much care for when I was playing. And I miss August and the way the grass used to smell when we went out to start two-a-days." "I guess I never saw my time running out. I thought I'd have it forever. And now if I could have anything back, it would be that-the feeling that came around every August when everything was new and anything could happen because the season was about to start." As I said; this exquisitely written book, isn't really about sports. It's about the parent you stopped talking to years ago, and now it's too late. It's about the lover you walked away from and never looked back. It's about the best friend whose friendship ended so long ago, and only now in hindsight do you look back. The author uses words like Picasso used colors!
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IT NEVER RAINS IN TIGER STADIUM: FOOTBALL AND THE GAME OF LIFE
Updated on 12-29-2007.
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