Carry the Rock: Race, Football, and the Soul of an American City [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Non-fiction chronicles of a football team's journey through a season (whether at the high school, college or professional level) are a staple of American sports writing. The challenge for any writer trying to take on such a story is to provide a new way to illuminate what is essentially a sports writing genre.

Scheduled for release as America settles in for a new football season, Jay Jennings success in providing a unique perspective on a a basic story that's been told before. The team he chose for this book -the Tigers of Little Rock Central High School-- represent the legacy of the challenging history of racial integration in the United States.

Nominally the story of a season of high school football, Jennings weaves other threads throughout the book. Among these are the history of Little Rock itself, the challenges of integrating the schools there in the 1950s (and an unflinching look at the realities of this 50 years later), and modern issues that continued to shape the city (and the school)...especially how the paths of Interstate highways can mold the urban areas they pass through, for better or worse.

The football narrative is centered on the coaching staff, with the spotlight shining firmly on coach Bernie Cox as he steers the Tigers through 2007 season, his 35th with the team. The demands of time and myriad challenges facing the coaches (facilities, parents, academics, the foibles of teenagers, how to get 50 kids moving in the same direction for an away game...let alone getting them moving on the field in the same direction) are excellently laid out by Jennings.

Football fans looking for detailed descriptions of Xs and Os won't find them there. The focus is not on play selection (although sometimes it is on player selection) but on the intangibles that come with coaching. What are the non-negotiable requirements for players? Cox's requirements are simple, yet could serve anybody well: flush the toilet, pick up your trash, put away your dirty clothes and be a good representative of your organization. The calculus of scheduling sheds light on the difficult choices facing an urban coach with limited resources. Cox is in his 35th season with the Tigers during the book, and is acutely aware of generational differences that force him to alter his approach to discipline.

At the end of the book, I was well educated on Little Rock history, and indoctrinated into the Bernie Cox system. I don't feel like I knew the players that well; if this book has a shortcoming, it would be with few exceptions that the players are treated in a unitary way.

Whether you like football, or are simply interested in a unsentimental yet sensitive description of how one mentor applies his hand to modern young people...this book is a great choice to kick off your fall reading season.

"Carry the Rock" has a quiet power and is very different from typical sports books. First, the structure of the book is really smart -- it juxtaposes Little Rock history, politics, and educational issues with the struggles of the team during this historic year, fifty years after the Little Rock 9 became famous. The writing is clean, honest, and genuine. While the author never sticks his face in the way of the story, you can feel his compassion and sense how profoundly the year must have affected him, as well as the Central High Tigers.

The fact that Jennings can make school board politics and districts interesting attests to his skills as a writer. Most compelling, though, is his portrait of the coach, Bernie Cox. The coach is strict yet loving, and seemingly the perfect leader for Central High. Like the author, Cox possesses a modest dignity and understated wisdom. Cox doesn't so much "jump off the page" as seep through -- as does the team's heartbreaking season.

This book is the "Friday Night Lights" for a smarter reader: not as sensational, and there won't be a TV show, but Jenning's book is just as powerful. Anyone interested in sports, race, or the education of our kids will love this book.

In the spirit of the awesome, unforgettable "Friday Night Lights," Jay Jennings has written "Carry the Rock," an examination of Little Rock, Arkansas and the juggernaut football program of Central High School.

This may not sound like a story of national interest, but Little Rock is a city that deserves attention for a lot more than Bill Clinton and the HBO gangland expose, "Bangin' in Little Rock." Little Rock is a touchstone city for the history of the American civil rights movement, for both good and ill. Jennings retells one of the most shocking tales of lynching in American history, an event that leaves lasting scars on the city and the South. But Jennings balances it with the proud history of Little Rock, both in terms of American political life (Bill Clinton is not the only famous Arkansan in American politics) and its cultural impact. It would shock many proud Northeastern elites to learn that Central High in Little Rock was for years considered to be among the top public high schools in the entire country. And this city was also the site of the infamous Little Rock Nine - nine African American teenagers who dared to break the color barrier and gain admission to the prestigious, segregated school in 1957.

Fifty years later, the legendary Central High football team is also trying to defend its state championship title. Unfortunately, despite the presence of a legendary coach on the sidelines and some really terrific kids, they just don't have the horses to justify their preseason ranking as #1 in the state. Jennings writes with compassion and clarity as he follows the Tigers through their season of triumphs and failures. This book serves as a reminder that where the national interest may fall for a brief moment, the locals are still all too human in their cares and tribulations.

While not rising to the heights of "FNL," it is probably an unfair comparison. This is a smaller book in many ways, and while Jennings labors mightily, the connections between the football team and the city's civil rights history are not always strong. The kids, naturally, don't really care about what happened fifty years ago. Think of the book as telling two different yet powerful stories set in the same place and it works much better.

I really admire this book.