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My Education in the Game
Penguin Press
September 2014
On Sale: September 4, 2014
240 pages
ISBN: 1594205752
EAN: 9781594205750
Kindle: B00INIXV3O
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Sports
Acclaimed essayist Mark Edmundson reflects on his own rite
of passage as a high school football player to get to larger
truths about the ways America's Game shapes its men Football teaches young men self-discipline and teamwork. But
football celebrates violence. Football is a showcase for
athletic beauty and physical excellence. But football
damages young bodies and minds, sometimes permanently.
Football inspires confidence and direction. But football
instills cockiness, a false sense of superiority. The
athlete is a noble figure with a proud lineage. The jock is
America at its worst. When Mark Edmundson’s son began to play organized football,
and proved to be very good at it, Edmundson had to come to
terms with just what he thought about the game. Doing so
took him back to his own childhood, when as a shy, soft boy
growing up in a blue-collar Boston suburb in the sixties, he
went out for the high school football team. Why Football
Matters is the story of what happened to Edmundson when he
tried to make himself into a football player. What does it mean to be a football player? At first
Edmundson was hapless on the field. He was an inept player
and a bad teammate. But over time, he got over his fears and
he got tougher. He learned to be a better player and came to
feel a part of the team, during games but also on all sorts
of escapades, not all of them savory. By playing football,
Edmundson became what he and his father hoped he’d be, a
tougher, stronger young man, better prepared for life. But is football-instilled toughness always a good thing? Do
the character, courage, and loyalty football instills have a
dark side? Football, Edmundson found, can be full of
bounties. But it can also lead you into brutality and
thoughtlessness. So how do you get what’s best from the
game and leave the worst behind? Why Football Matters is moving, funny, vivid, and filled
with the authentic anxiety and exhilaration of youth.
Edmundson doesn’t regret playing football for a minute, and
cherishes the experience. His triumph is to be able to see
it in full, as something to celebrate, but also something to
handle with care. For anyone who has ever played on a
football team, is the parent of a player, or simply is
reflective about its outsized influence on America, Why
Football Matters is both a mirror and a lamp.
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