Chronicles David Beckham’s short, unhappy career with the Los Angeles Galaxy. The stunning signing caused a sensation but quickly dissolved in the contradictions of the player’s image-obsessed handlers, who undermined Alexei Lalas especially in the signing of a European coach, as well as untimely injuries. American star Landon Donovan came to question Becks’ role, the most damning outcome before the latter’s retreat to Milan. Wahl’s work casts insight on the tenuousness of American pro soccer.
Sports
8. Carlin, Invictus (9 Dec 2009)
Narrates Nelson Mandela’s 10-year odyssey from political prisoner to elected, popularly acclaimed leader of post-apartheid South Africa, an ambition spectacularly achieved by coopting the emblematic Springboks. South African rugby circa 1994 was more immovable object than irresistible force, so Mandela ingeniously converted the sport into a fulcrum for incorporating white society into the emerging sociopolitical order; the alternative was civil war. The monograph elaborates parts of Mandela’s
- Long Walk to Freedom
more than it retells the 1995 World Cup, while the movie focuses more on the world championship. It’s disappointing but not critical that the book (and movie) skips past controversial allegations of food poisoning and the birth pangs of professionalism, remarkably a contemporary phenomenon. The plot would have been strengthened by telling of Chester Williams’ belated inclusion. Also, while all stories must begin and end somewhere, the 1996 series loss to New Zealand and Afrikaner recidivism meant the road to the rainbow nation was not only one direction.
5. Ryan, Try for Gold (11 Nov 2011)
The narrative of US Olympic rugby is well known, and this tale diligently rehearses 1920 and 1924 while breaking little new ground. The most interesting topic is not the relationship of protagonists ‘Babe’ Slater and Rudy Scholz, but the success of the crossover athletes. Sadly the author is sloppy in executing the 3d-person omniscient and so probably misses other such seminal moments in American history. Infuriating style but impossible not to come away enlightened and proud. A useful appendix.
6. Greenwald, This Copyrighted Broadcast (10 May 2012)
An unusually structured narrative by a well-regarded San Francisco Giants baseball radio announcer. The book is only half devoted to baseball and rarely addresses the topic after midway, save for a coda. Other chapters treat feckless college life at Syracuse in the Jim Brown era, taking a punt on moving to Sydney, and the author’s fascination with Douglas MacArthur. Drily witty, the disjointed narrative makes it difficult to envision the less glamorous side of the business such as travel. It is believable, however, that the author wished to exit before soured by commercialization. Yet Greenwald might have offered perspective on other changes to the game (and craft).
9. Atkinson, Rugby-Playing Man (12 Jul 2012)
Remember America’s ‘tavern league’ era, when ill-resourced, player-coached teams contested lightly organized leagues while celebrating the cultish, borderline behavior of 20- and 30-year-olds?
These days, most do not. The game is predominated by students, most of whom weren’t born at the time of its heyday in the 1980s and early 1990s. So what do we really know of the stereotype?
Jay Atkinson’s
- Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man: Guts, Glory, and Blood in the World’s Greatest Game
, a well-crafted autobiography of a senior-grade player in Florida, Boston, and elsewhere, is a poignant, representative snapshot of the men who identified with rugby beyond all else.
- Rugby-Playing Man’s
dust jacket sensationalizes its contents, but the narrative is more nuanced. As the author begins, ‘There are the things we do for love, and the things we do for rugby, which are pretty much the same, at least in my case’.
To be sure, there are any number debauched adventures, some of which could still transpire today. It is one thing to revisit tales among teammates, however, and another to bring them to life – without pandering – for a new audience. This is a primary achievement of Atkinson’s effort.
Still more interesting are recollections of how Atkinson found his home at hooker, a controversial state championship match, or a tour of Wales. Anyone who played in the era will relate. Though the book is consciously neither historical or sociological, later generations and outsiders will glimpse the game as commonly experienced.
Disgust with the tavern-league era – homespun administrators as much as outre players – is one explanation for American rugby’s latter-day obsession with professionalizing. The union’s present constitution seals the board off from the grassroots: only well-heeled capitalists need apply. Most have no affinity for American rugby culture, always a weakness for any government.
Atkinson’s
- Rugby-Playing Man
surpasses its author’s narrative, portraying the good and bad of a bygone time. America’s modern era, which has fallen short of its self-declared goals, will do well to find an equally skillful telling.
See also http://www.gainline.us/gainline/2015/02/on-the-tavern-league-era.html
20. Richards, A Game for Hooligans (16 Dec 2016)
Surveys elite-level rugby union from the 1860s to the 2007 World Cup. Most attuned to competitive outcomes, the author elaborates the impact of law changes, regional distinctions and trends, and even socioeconomic influences but declines to articulate a superordinate narrative. For example, while amateurism’s distortions figure in most in the work, the storyline seemingly forgets the old code as it portrays the new features of an overly professional game. This may be conscious decision: to present a more encompassing theory might have forced Richards into a history of World Rugby (nee International Board), which would be far more difficult to research, probably less interesting, and certainly exclusive of the majority. Although diligently touching base on emerging countries, there are omissions of the Pan American and Pacific Rim tournaments, plus the sign-off misses the growth of the Olympic version, seven-a-side. A very useful bibliography.
2. Shapton, Swimming Studies (22 Jan 2017)
A wistful, ‘pointillist’ review of the author’s competitive swimming, applying her conclusions to her aspects of her artistic and publishing career. There are shrewd insights, such as athletes train through injury because only training makes them forget they are hurt, and glimpses of why athletic performance inspires spectators. Yet the author never articulates why she thinks she wasn’t good enough, or why she peaked in 1988 (having returned to compete in 1992). Further, although swimming clearly remains important, judging from the number of European swimming and bathing facilities she’s continued to visit, presented in a series of prints, or her suit collection, it’s unclear why she disdains to train for simple fitness or to consider open water competition. Separately, many promising anecdotes end too abruptly, more stylish than insightful. Still, the book is revealing and bracing change from ghostwritten superstar monographs.
5. Ferguson, Leading (25 Mar 2017)
The famously successful Manchester United coach outlines his management precepts and practical guidelines for steering a professional sports organization. He writes ‘Make sure you see yourself in the team’ and frequently refers to his playing days, but doesn’t go much further toward an overarching theory. As regards sustaining success, the messages can be summarized as ‘Think critically, and think ahead’ while enforcing (often through delegation) the standards you’ve already established. The book’s organization appears the handiwork of Michael Moritz, whose ego unfortunately seems to loom over the work.
11. Collins, Oval World (13 Jun 2017)
A sweeping, geographically oriented narration of rugby from its 19th-century origins to the present. The overarching themes are the ideological and socioeconomic challenge of professionalized competition — including contrasts between union and league — and the game’s relationship with (mainly Commonwealth) communities. From 1892 to 1995, professionalism bedeviled Victorian, ‘upper-middle–class’ ethos, most notably in England, Australia, and France. Collins asserts league rules changes in 1906 and 1972 kept the 13-man code ahead of union as a running-handling game, and so a spectator sport, and its meritocratic nature made it more deeply embedded in local communities. Union, by comparison, was a reluctant follower which often pragmatically chose to preserve its authority over strict application of its beliefs. In the Southern hemisphere, turning a blind eye (especially in isolated South Africa) as well as proximity to league’s accelerating commercialization (notably in Australia) better prepared the SANZAR countries for rugby’s becoming an ‘open’ game. Union’s approach failed notably in the instance of apartheid South Africa’s rivalry with New Zealand for world preeminence, when it found itself too far out of step with community sentiment. So too did the communist nationals present a novel threat. There is little discussion of club versus province. When it comes to the US, the two-fold framework falls over. Geography has always been the principal challenge: how to nurture a football code to rival gridiron across a continental nation, and how to win international recognition? As elsewhere, the author sometimes breezes past the evidence and so draws facile conclusions. For example, the US was never unified and so could not have fragmented after the collapse of Olympic rugby in the 1920s.
21. Finnegan, Barbarian Days (9 Oct 2017)
A robust telling of the author’s surfing from Bohemian youth through expatriate life to escapades from New York. Finnegan grew up in northern Los Angeles and the east side of Oahu in the 1950s and 60s before heading to UC Santa Cruz, then dropping out to surfari in Hawaii, the Polynesian islands (where he discovered Tavarua), and Australia. All along, he read and wrote extensively while learning to interview locals, developing an approachable, conversational style and a leftist worldview. In Cape Town, he parlayed a chance post teaching black students into ‘frontline’ journalism, substantially launching his career. Most relatable is four years during the mid 80s in San Francisco among the ‘Doc’ Renneker crowd. But frequent surf-induced delinquency, as well as his partner’s ambitions, induced his move to metropolitan New York to become a full-time writer for the
- New Yorker
— relegating surfing to big-wave sojourns in Madeira and smash-and-grab trips around the Tri State area. Finnegan writes lucidly and patiently about wave features, making the book accessible to novices. I disagree with the assertion that surfing paradoxically combines desire to be alone with desire to perform — solace or at least friendship wins out — but enjoy the idea (attributed to Norman Mailer) that exercise without excitement, competition, or danger doesn’t strengthen the body but wears it out. Not because my own experience of exercise is weariness but as I have enjoyed training with a purpose.