| Description |
1 online resource (1 audio file (720 min.)) : digital. |
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digital digital recording rda |
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data file rda |
| Access |
Digital content provided by hoopla. |
| Cast |
Read by Stefan Fatsis. |
| Summary |
In Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis infiltrated the insular world of competitive Scrabble players, ultimately achieving expert status (comparable to a grandmaster ranking in chess). Now he infiltrates a strikingly different subculture-pro football. After more than a year spent working out with a strength coach and polishing his craft with a gurulike kicking coach, Fatsis molded his fortyish body into one that could stand up-barely-to the rigors of NFL training. And over three months in 2006, he became a Denver Bronco. He trained with the team and lived with the players. He was given a locker and uniforms emblazoned with the number 9. He was expected to perform all the drills and regimens required of other kickers. He ws unlike his teammates in some ways-most notably, his livelihood was not on the line as theirs was. But he became remarkably like them in many ways: he risked crippling injury just as they did, endured the hazing that befalls all rookies, daily gorged on 4,000 calories, and slogged through two-a-day practices in blistering heat. Not since George Plimpton's stint as a Detroit Lion more than forty years ago has a writer tunneled so deeply into the NFL.At first, the players tolerated Fatsis or treated him like a mascot, but over time they began to think of him as one of them. And he began to think like one of them. Like the other Broncos-like all elite athletes-he learned to perfect a motion through thousands of repetitions, to play through pain, to silence the crowd's roar, and to banish self-doubt.While Fatsis honed his mind and drove his body past exhaustion, he communed with every classic athletic type-the afable alpha male, the overpaid brat, the youthful phenom, the savvy veteran-and a welter of bracingly atypical players as well: a fullback who invokes Aristotle, a quarterback who embraces yoga, and a tight end who takes creative writing classes in the off-season. Fatsis also witnessed the hidden machinery of a top-flight football franchise, from the God-is-in-the-details strategizing of legendary coach Mike Shanahan to the icy calculation with which the front office makes or breaks careers.With wry candor and hard-won empathy, A Few Seconds of Panic unveils the mind of the modern pro athlete and the workings of a storied sports franchise as no book ever has before. |
| System Details |
Mode of access: World Wide Web. |
| Subject |
Fatsis, Stefan.
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National Football League.
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Placekickers (Football) -- United States -- Anecdotes.
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Sportswriters -- United States -- Anecdotes.
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Football players -- United States -- Anecdotes.
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| Added Author |
Fatsis, Stefan. Narrator.
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hoopla digital.
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| ISBN |
9781400127672 (sound recording : hoopla Audio Book) |
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140012767X (sound recording : hoopla Audio Book) |
| Music No. |
MWT10755278 |
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