Scoreboard, Baby
A Story of College Football, Crime, and Complicity
Published on 1. September 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-0-8032-2810-8 (ISBN)
Description
The adjectives associated with the University of Washington's 2000 football season-mystical, magical, miraculous-changed when Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry's four-part exposE of the 2000 Huskies hit the newspaper stands: "explosive . . . chilling" (Sports Illustrated), "blistering" (Baltimore Sun), "shocking . . . appalling" (Tacoma News Tribune), "astounding" (ESPN), "jaw-dropping" (Orlando Sentinel). Now, in Scoreboard, Baby, Armstrong and Perry go behind the scenes of the Huskies' Cinderella story to reveal a timeless morality tale about the price of obsession, the creep of fanaticism, and the ways in which a community can lose even when its team wins. The authors unearth the true story from firsthand interviews and thousands of pages of documents: the forensic report on a bloody fingerprint; the notes of a detective investigating allegations of rape; confidential memoranda of prosecutors; and the criminal records of the dozen-plus players arrested that year with scant mention in the newspapers and minimal consequences in the courts. The statement of a judge, sentencing one player to thirty days in jail, says it all: "to be served after football season."
Reviews / Votes
""However familiar the underlying conflict might seem, there's an added layer of tension and tragedy to the narrative that makes Scoreboard, Baby a particularly distressing tale-and one that should be required reading for anyone linked to university life.""-Libby Sander, Chronicle of Higher Education|""While the focus is specifically on the University of Washington program, this story carries importance and relevance to fans far beyond Seattle. Investigative journalism at its most revealing.""-Alan Moores, Booklist Online|""A remarkable book.""-Steve Weinberg, Seattle Times|""Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry have written a classic. . . . Through extensive review of public records and interviews, the authors detail the complicity of Seattle community members, law enforcement officials, coaches, players, members of the legal profession, local media, and the university in this tale of ""twisted values.""""-Dick Stull, Arete|""Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some of America's top universities still perpetuate the myth of the ""student-athlete."" Armstrong and Perry sound the death knell of that hoary fable by exposing the win-at-all-costs deprivation that thrived at UW under golden-boy coach Rick Neuheisel.""-KirkusMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Nebraska
United States
Publishing group
University of Nebraska Press
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
17 photographs
Dimensions
Height: 215 mm
Width: 141 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
473 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8032-2810-8 (9780803228108)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2010
1st Edition
Bison Books
€19.49
Available for download
Persons
Ken Armstrong is a reporter for the Seattle Times, as was Nick Perry from 2002 until 2011. Perry is now a correspondent for the Associated Press. Their investigative work on the 2000 Huskies won two of journalism's highest honors: the George Polk Award and the Michael Kelly Award, recognizing "the fearless pursuit and expression of truth." In 2010 Armstrong and Perry shared in the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting, which was awarded to the staff of the Seattle Times for its coverage of the shooting deaths of four police officers. Armstrong won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting and is a three-time winner of the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. He previously worked at the Chicago Tribune, where he co-wrote six series on criminal-justice issues, including an investigation of the death penalty that helped prompt the state's governor to suspend executions and eventually to empty Death Row. In 2009 he received the prestigious John Chancellor Award from Columbia University for lifetime achievement.
Perry has won national journalism awards in both New Zealand, his homeland, and the United States, where he has specialized in covering higher education. He was named a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan for the 2010-11 academic year.
Perry has won national journalism awards in both New Zealand, his homeland, and the United States, where he has specialized in covering higher education. He was named a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan for the 2010-11 academic year.
Content
List of Illustrations Cast of Characters Acknowledgments Prologue: Hush-Hush 1. Freeze 2. Marie 3. Fragments 4. Stirrings 5. Louisville Slugger 6. Nothing but Ashes 7. Face-off 8. Taking the Field 9. Happily Ever After 10. The Twelfth Man 11. In Hiding 12. Taking a Pass 13. Narrowly Honest 14. Scoreboard, Baby 15. Carving Their Names 16. Body and Soul 17. Up, Down, In, Out 18. Taking a Shot 19. A Week in the Life 20. Love, Love, Love 21. I Can't Breathe 22. Story Lines 23. California Fun 24. A Mystical, Magical Day 25. Climbing the Hill 26. Always Hated, Never Faded 27. Ripples 28. When the Game's Over Epilogue: All about the Wins Notes Index