The Sweet Season: A Sportswriter Rediscovers Football, Family, and a Bit of Faith at Minnesota's St. John's University eBook: Austin Murphy: Amazon.de: Kindle-Shop

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The Sweet Season is an aptly titled, vibrantly entertaining book. After a decade of fall travel covering games, longtime Sports Illustrated football reporter Austin Murphy forgoes the roadie lifestyle to move with his family and cover one of the best football programs in the nation, at Minnesota's St. John's University. With all the self-deprecating and witty style of Bill Bryson, Murphy depicts the coaches, players, monks (it is, after all, a Catholic school), his family, and himself as fallible humans and unsung heroes.

Above all, Murphy has fun here, in his silly depictions of small-town, college life, the simple delights his family brings, and the refreshment of football without superhuman egos. John Gagliardi, the 70-plus coach of St. John's, has won more games than any five active NFL coaches combined, despite a non-traditional coaching style devoid of full-contact scrimmages or hours of (useless) calisthenics. One Johnny exercise is the Beautiful Day Drill, where players flop down and stare at the sky, commenting on the loveliness overhead.

Murphy's football anecdotes are insightful, his humor relentless, and his game savvy tested. At the first St. John's game, Murphy "[watches] the kickoff transfixed, half-expecting Eau Claire's returner to go all the way. I mean, I've been with the Johnnies damned near a month and haven't seen them make a tackle. Who's to say they can do it?" As we find out, and opposing teams can attest, they hit hard, every season. Highly recommended. --Michael Ferch

From Booklist

After 15 years of covering major-college football for Sports Illustrated, Murphy spent a six-month sabbatical following the gridiron fortunes of tiny St. John's College in rural Minnesota. St. John's coach, John Gagliardi, who leads all college coaches in career wins, knows football, but more importantly, he uses the game to help his players succeed at life. Following the St. John's team, Murphy rediscovers the excitement and satisfaction of sport for sport's sake. He's tickled at the prospect of a whole football season in which he has no contact with felons. This could easily have degenerated into a yet another sermon with a "little is good, big is bad" moral. Murphy won't permit it. He's a clear-eyed reporter with the objective sense to realize that St. John's isn't perfect and that the University of Miami isn't a human cesspool. In the end, his season at St. John's teaches him more about himself and his values than about football--just the way it works for Coach Gagliardi's players. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Format: Kindle Edition
Dateigr��e: 417 KB
Seitenzahl der Print-Ausgabe: 340 Seiten
ISBN-Quelle f�r Seitenzahl: 0060505842
Verlag: HarperCollins e-books (13. Oktober 2009)
Verkauf durch: Amazon Media EU S.� r.l.
Sprache: Englisch
ASIN: B000Z4JQPG
Text-to-Speech (Vorlesemodus): Aktiviert

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Ein Idyll für jeden Sportbegeisterten 16. April 2002

Von "lindemonster"

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

In seinem, teilweise fast autobiographischen Buch, beschreibt Austin Murphy eindrucksvoll die amerikanische Liebe zum American Football und den Mythos darum.
Schauplatz ist die St. John's Universität im tiefsten Minnesota, wohin es Murphy zu einer viermonatigen Auszeit vom hektischen Profi-Football zieht. Zusammen mit seiner Familie lebt er in der Nachbarschaft des ansässigen Mönches und lernt deren Gegenwart zu schätzen.
Mit detailliertem Erzählen wird der Werdegang eines College-Footballteams beschrieben, das von dem legendären John Gagliardi seit über 40 Jahren trainiert wird. Die außergewöhnliche Aura und Philosophie dieses Mentors beeinflusst nicht nur den Autor, sondern wird auch jeden Sportinteressierten nachhaltigen beeinflussen.
Ein Buch, dass viele Spass bereitet, nicht nur für Football-Kenner.

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17 von 17 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

All the Important Stuff 26. September 2001

Von Norm - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

I had a football coach my senior year in high school who set our priorities for us at the beginning of the season. They are listed here in decending order:
1. God
2. Family
3. School
4. Football
This book explores all these priorities and does it with a hilarious but insightful twist. Reading the stories, learning about the people and being privy to what make St. Johns so "Sweet", makes me believe my high school football coach had it right all along. Murphy must be exceptionally well paid to go back to what he describes takes place in the big leagues on a consistent basis. This book restores my faith in the game. The negative sports news we hear so much about, the throat slashing antics, the war dances are all performed by a very small percentage of bafoons who drag sports down to their level. I would like to believe the majority of people who play this game are like the folks at St. Johns. It is fantastic that Murphy spoke out for those who have been seeing the game deteriorate over the years. This book props up the sport of college football, puts God and family at the top of the heap and is a great advertisement for what sounds like a neat place to go to school.

9 von 9 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

Poetic, funny, amusing ... truly an excellent read 22. Oktober 2001

Von Timothy R. Sullivan - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

I don't know where to start on this book. I just finished it and was blown away. Austin Murphy is truly an excellent writer. At times poetic in his descriptions -- one point talking about how the coach of the college had lost a dear friend and had put up walls to protect himself -- and many other times funny. The whole book has one-liners all over.

But the purpose for Murphy isn't to be funny, it's to describe the world of Division III football at the nation's most successful college program, under an ecclectic coach with unorthodox methods. Murphy leaves behind big-time college and pro football reporting for a fall and rediscovers not just the game, but himself and his family. The way he ties football in with the rest of his life is amazing.

Murphy gets close to the players, coaches and fans of the program, and becomes involved heavily in the community of the town, getting to know the monks at the college and local fans. He rediscovers his wife and family, an area he admits neglecting for the past few years.

Perhaps the best part of the book is Murphy's transparency. He's not afraid to admit his faults. He's often the Homer Simpson of parenting: he loves his children deeply but stumbles along in raising them -- letting them stay out to midnight, having them eat junk food and taking toddlers on scary amusement rides made for adults. He's a man of contradiction, admitting he can't help but go with NFL players to strip clubs -- Sports Illustrated ought to put an end to this real soon; what kind of comments is he going to get at such a place, cat calls? -- but feels he is compromising his journalistic integrity by hanging out too much with the St. John's players. Strange logic indeed, but at least Murphy is candid enough to put his faults out there.

It's inspirational, moving, funny and very well written. Anyone who is interested in humanity -- not just football -- and getting back to one's roots, should read this book.

7 von 7 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

College Football as It Used to Be Played 8. September 2001

Von Ein Kunde - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

This is a "must-read" for all football fans sick of the egomaniac coaches and players so prevalent in big-time football of today. Murphy's book chronicles, with exceptional wit and wisdom,the travails and joys of the players and legendary coach of Division III St. John's University of Minnesota during a recent "Sweet Season." It is also the story of a young football writer for a national sports magazine who, in returning to college football as it used to be played before it bacame a major industry, rejuvenates his marriage and gets to know his kids - and himself.
The story introduces the readers to a lot of "down home" Minnesotans who love St. John's, the monks, and most especially the Johnnies, their team of undersized athletes who don't realize they are not supposed to be winners, but are shown the way by a coach who is one of the greatest of all time.

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