This weekend, the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots will face off in the 52nd Super Bowl. In the meantime, here are three books that take you behind the scenes of the game and highlight the characters and circumstances that affect football greatness.
THE BLIND SIDE
Evolution of a Game
By Michael Lewis
304 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. (2006)
Ostensibly, this book is about Michael Oher, a black child who grew up poor in Memphis, raised by a crack-addicted mother until he was adopted by a family who helped him graduate high school and primed him for a career in professional football. (His story was adapted into a movie of the same name starring Sandra Bullock.) But Lewis also “continues what he began with ‘Moneyball,’” wrote our reviewer, “advancing a new genre of journalism that shows how market forces and economic reasoning shape the evolution of sports.” Lewis explains how the success of Lawrence Taylor, a large and agile linebacker for the New York Giants, created a demand for left offensive tackles who could cover a quarterback’s blind side; Taylor paved the way for Oher. According to our reviewer, even those disinclined to enjoy football will like this book.
THE EDUCATION OF A COACH
By David Halberstam
277 pp. Hyperion. (2005)
Bill Belichick, the head coach for the New England Patriots, is not an easy subject. The writer calls him “a hard man to reach and to understand completely.” Yet our reviewer noted that Halberstam is “gifted and inquisitive enough” to make this story, about how Belichick became the coach he is today, work. Drawing on interviews with Belichick, Halberstam details the lessons the man has learned from other coaches he’s worked with, starting with his father, Steve, a lifelong assistant coach who taught his son how to analyze game film. He chronicles Belichick’s ambitious climb, demonstrating how, though lacking the charisma of other coaches, Belichick is a “quiet man of chalk.”
ABOUT THREE BRICKS SHY … AND THE LOAD FILLED UP
A Highly Irregular Lowdown on the Year the Pittsburgh Steelers Were Super but Missed the Bowl
By Roy Blount Jr.
310 pp. Little, Brown. (1974)
Based on Blount’s year following the Pittsburgh Steelers with mostly unfettered access, this book gives an inside look at the players, coaches and executives involved with the team. The writer spends time drinking and going out to clubs with the team (so much time, in fact, that he gains 13 pounds). Race also features prominently in the book: Blount meets a black cornerback who shares his last name, and the player tells him, “Just think, your great-grandfather probably owned my great-grandfather, and here you are writing a book about me.” The book was originally titled, “About Three Bricks Shy of a Load,” but the name was revised once the Steelers started to win Super Bowls. Our reviewer wrote that he’d never read a book that “explains so well the paradox of the brutality and subtlety of this repelling and fascinating game.” And Times critic Dwight Garner called “About Three Bricks” Blount’s “best book, and the sort of sports book we’re unlikely to see again.”