Tropic of Football
The Long and Perilous Journey of Samoans to the NFL
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Narrado por:
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Paul Heitsch
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De:
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Rob Ruck
Acerca de esta escucha
Longlisted for the PEN/ESPN Award
“Everything that’s rousing and distressing about block-and-tackle football is encompassed in Tropic of Football...illuminating.” (Newsday)
How a tiny Pacific archipelago is producing more players - from Troy Polamalu to Marcus Mariota - for the NFL than anywhere else in the world, by an award-winning sports historian
Football is at a crossroads, its future imperiled by the very physicality that drives its popularity. Its grass roots - high school and youth travel program - are withering. But players from the small South Pacific American territory of Samoa are bucking that trend, quietly becoming the most disproportionately overrepresented culture in the sport.
Jesse Sapolu, Junior Seau, Troy Polamalu, and Marcus Mariota are among the star players to emerge from the Samoan islands, and more of their brethren suit up every season. The very thing that makes them so good at football - their extraordinary internalization of discipline and warrior self-image - makes them especially vulnerable to its pitfalls, including concussions and brain injuries.
Award-winning sports historian Rob Ruck travels to the South Seas to unravel American Samoa’s complex ties with the United States. He finds an island blighted by obesity, where boys train on fields blistered with volcanic pebbles wearing helmets that should have been discarded long ago, incurring far more neurological damage than their stateside counterparts and haunted by Junior Seau, who committed suicide after a vaunted 20-year NFL career, unable to live with the demons that resulted from chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Tropic of Football is a gripping, bittersweet history of what may be football’s last frontier.
©2018 Robert Ruck (P)2019 Audible, Inc.Los oyentes también disfrutaron...
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On November 23, 1968, near the end of a turbulent and memorable year, there was a football game that would also prove turbulent and memorable: the season-ending clash between Harvard and Yale. Both teams entered undefeated and, technically at least, came out undefeated. The final score was 29-29. To some of the players on the field, it was a triumph; to others a tragedy. George Howe Colt’s The Game is the story of that iconic American year, as seen through the young men who lived it and were changed by it.
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Against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in recent American history, as riots and demonstrations spread across the nation, the Tigers of poor, segregated East High School in Columbus, Ohio, did something no team from one school had ever done before: They won the state basketball and baseball championships in the same year. They defeated bigger, richer, whiter teams across the state and along the way brought blacks and whites together, eased a painful racial divide throughout the state, and overcame extraordinary obstacles on their road to success.
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Flashback to the Late 1960s
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Junior Seau
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Tiaina Baul "Junior" Seau is widely considered one of the best linebackers ever to play the game. A 10-time All-Pro and 12-time Pro Bowl selection, Seau was picked for the NFL's All-Decade Team in the 1990s. His incredible career spanned two decades, during which time he played for the Chargers, Dolphins, and Patriots. In 2012, at the age of 43, Seau committed suicide with a gunshot wound to the chest. News of his death sent shockwaves through the NFL.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Lo que los oyentes dicen sobre Tropic of Football
Calificaciones medias de los clientesReseñas - Selecciona las pestañas a continuación para cambiar el origen de las reseñas.
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Total4 out of 5 stars
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Ejecución4 out of 5 stars
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Historia5 out of 5 stars
- L.N.
- 10-22-21
Loving the game & people
Like others have said the audible book is good, you just need to get past repeatedly hearing Suh-moa & appreciate the story honoring the people.
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Total5 out of 5 stars
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Ejecución3 out of 5 stars
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Historia5 out of 5 stars
- MDF
- 04-26-20
Great book. Just Great.
Someone should have been hired to help the reader with his pronunciation. Still great though.
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Total5 out of 5 stars
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Ejecución5 out of 5 stars
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Historia5 out of 5 stars
- Tribal Warrior
- 04-12-22
Fa'a Samoa & the journey to American football !
A rare, insightful and captivating look at how these large, burly polynesian behemoths are deceptively athletic, agile and aggressive on the American football field. And the arduous journey of what it took to get there. Highly recommended, great narrator, listened 3 times completely ! Cheeeeeee huuuuuuu !!!!!!
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